A year after the ceremonial groundbreaking, the opening of the Ardie R. Copas State Veterans’ Nursing Home is about a year away. At the last regular meeting of the Florida Veterans Council, Steve Murray said construction is moving swiftly.
“We’re still looking at a late 2019 turnover to (the Florida Department of Veteran Affairs), then we go in and outfit it with furniture and beds,” he said.
Murray is the communications director of the state veterans department. The Florida Veterans Council is made up of state leaders of congressionally chartered veterans organizations, such as AMVETS.
Groundbreaking for the Copas home was on March 20 last year. Then Gov. Rick Scott – who’s now a senator – and others gathered in Tradition to ceremonially break ground for the home four and a half years after the Florida Cabinet voted to build it. Land clearing for construction started on June 18 last year.
In a phone interview after the veterans council meeting, Murray said the veterans home should be opened by March of next year. He’s watching progress in aerial photos the contractor sends.
“You can now see where the roads are going to go and the outlines of the buildings,” Murray said. “It’s very, very exciting.”
Murray said hiring of about 175 people to run the 121,000-square-foot facility will mostly happen toward the end of this year. Around the same time, the state will start advertising opening for up to 120 residents.
“They have to be residents of Florida, honorably discharged, and have a certification of need for nursing care by a (Department of Veteran Affairs) doctor,” Murray said.
While they’re similar in name, the federal VA and Florida Department of Veteran Affairs are separate organizations. Because certification of need must be by VA doctors, perspective patients must be enrolled in the Veterans Health Administration and receiving care at facilities such as the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center.
The home won’t be filled with its capacity 120 patients right after ribbon-cutting. Murray said the state veterans department fills new homes piecemeal over a couple months. Murray said that usually the state veterans department starts a newsletter-style progress report to communities, but things will be different this time.
“I’ll probably start something like that in the summer,” Murray said. “When we built our last home, there wasn’t a heavy social media presence in the U.S.”
With the Copas home, Murray plans to do the traditional updates on the department’s Twitter and other social media pages.
