Ground is now broken four and a half years after the Florida Cabinet voted to build the state’s next veterans nursing home in Tradition.
On Tuesday, March 20, Gov. Rick Scott and others gathered at the western end of Tradition Parkway to ceremonially break ground for the Ardie R. Copas State Veterans’ Nursing Home.
The governor, a Navy veteran, joked that St. Lucie County made clear it would go to the mat with anyone to get the state’s seventh veterans nursing home.
“I remember being in the cabinet room,” Scott told attendees at the groundbreaking. “I don’t think we could have voted any other way. It would have been too dangerous for us.”
Local discussion about the proposed 121,000-square-foot facility started in 2014. The state legislature started a site-selection process for the veterans nursing home in 2013. By fall of 2014, a site-selection committee had picked the 28-acre location in Tradition.
When the committee made its recommendation to the executive director of the Florida Department of Veteran Affairs to give the cabinet, Marion County fervently protested. St. Lucie edged it out in the committee’s scoring by a hair’s width. The cabinet delayed the vote until Marion reluctantly withdrew its bid for the home.
“You showed how much you cared,” Scott said at the groundbreaking. “You’re going to be really proud of this when it’s built.”
St. Lucie’s fight for the home wasn’t over. The first projected groundbreaking date was the tail end of 2015. However, there were delays exasperated by a design spat between the state and federal government (which is paying for 65 percent of the construction) that threatened to derail construction of the veterans nursing home. Local officials and veterans strongly advocated in Tallahassee and Washington, D.C., for getting the home built. At the groundbreaking, Florida Senate President Joe Negron said the persistence of locals paid off.
“We were stuck in fed government purgatory,” he said.
But, he added, “there was an energy for this project from Day 1. We were going to get this project done.”
Early in 2015 the cabinet took nominations for naming the new home. All of Florida’s veterans nursing homes are named after Metal of Honor recipients with ties to the area.
St. Lucie resident Ardie R. Copas had only recently been posthumously awarded the nation’s highest military honor for bravery. He was among the Valor 24, a group of service members a Pentagon review determined were wrongly passed over for the medal due to prior racial discrimination.
A unit mate previously told St. Lucie Voice that many who served with him believe Copas was passed over for the Medal of Honor due to the fact he died in combat in Cambodia, not in Vietnam, in May 1970. The expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia was unpopular and sparked many protests.
Copas’ daughter, Shyrell Copay-Herrera, and other family members were among the dignitaries at the groundbreaking. Copay-Herrera never got to meet her father.
Steve Murray, communications director at the Florida Department of Veteran Affairs, said it will take 18 to 24 months to build the 120-bed nursing home. He said a construction timeline isn’t yet solidly fixed.
“We’ll figure out with the contractor when (we) can start looking for this and looking for that,” he said in a phone interview after the groundbreaking.
Negron said there’s already much excitement for the opening. At the groundbreaking, he said while campaigning in 2016 he met a woman ready to volunteer at the home.
“She said, make a note, because when that veterans nursing home comes online, I want to come volunteer at the veterans nursing home and read to veterans,” he told ceremony attendees. “I made a note – I’m going to call her.”
“The state started building its network of veterans nursing homes in Volusia County.” The state’s veterans department opened the Emory L. Bennett State Veterans Nursing Home in Daytona Beach in 1993.
Even a quarter of a century later, numerous locals volunteer at the home. Chip Haverty III is one. His Elks lodge raises money to host a monthly bingo night at the home. Residents play for free and get cash prizes.
Haverty said he’s been going to the home every month for at least a decade. He had a message for Port St. Lucie.
“Get involved (with the Ardie R. Copas home),” he said. “They’re a bunch of great guys. Every month, I hear different stories from them and they thank us.”
Haverty’s sons, 19 and 14, enjoy going to the state veterans nursing home with him.
“I take my kids out there with me,” he told St. Lucie Voice. “They’ve had a blast.”
Murray said all of the state’s veterans nursing homes enjoy a lot of community involvement.
He’s getting occasional phone calls and emails from St. Lucie residents wanting to volunteer. Murray said in coming months he’ll start posting updates about the home at the FDVA’s website, www.floridavets.org.