Construction of the Ardie R. Copas State Veterans’ Nursing Home in Tradition is slated to start this Monday, June 18.
“They’re leveling the ground and putting in the ponds for drainage,” said Steve Murray, communications director at the Florida Department of Veteran Affairs.
The start of the project is, of course, dependent upon weather. Nevertheless, Murray said many will likely be excited to see bulldozers and other equipment on Tradition Parkway.
“It’ll be nice when everybody gets to see the construction,” he said.
The home will open 20 to 24 months after ground leveling begins. After the ground is readied, actual construction of the 120-bed facility will begin soon after. “I don’t have data on when the first cinderblock will be down,” Murray said.
There was a groundbreaking for the Copas home, named for a Fort Pierce Medal of Honor recipient, on March 20 that drew Gov. Rick Scott and other dignitaries. It was a long-awaited start for the 121,000-square-foot facility that will specialize in caring for patients with dementia.
Progress on the home was long stagnated by a previous spat between Tallahassee and Washington, D.C. over design standards. The federal Department of Veteran Affairs – which is separate from the Florida Department of Veteran Affairs – is paying for 65 percent of the about $48 million construction, and thus had to approve designs. The quarrel was resolved early in 2017. The state veterans department had announced timeframes for groundbreakings for Copas since December 2014.
Once opened, the state veterans department will employ about 175 people to work at the home. Some hiring for key positions will begin later this year, so department directors will literally know the nursing home inside and out when it opens.
Veterans groups, including the Florida Veterans Council, have called for additional nursing homes for about a decade. The federal VA estimates that Florida needs about 4,000 beds in its state veterans nursing home system. It has fewer than 1,000. The last veterans home the state built is the Clyde E. Lassen State Veterans’ Nursing Home in St. Augustine. The groundbreaking was in 2008, and it opened in 2010.
This has been the longest wait for a new nursing home in the state veterans department’s 30-year history. Voters approved creation of the FDVA in 1988. It opened the Robert H. Jenkins Jr. Veterans’ Domiciliary Home in Lake City in 1990.
