OKLAHOMA CITY – Two state veterans’ centers that were built more than a century ago are scheduled to be replaced with new facilities.
Despite an outcry from several legislators and other supporters, the veterans center at Talihina will be replaced with a new facility at Sallisaw. And the veterans center at Ardmore – originally constructed as a home for Confederate veterans of the Civil War – will be replaced with a new and larger facility in the Carter County community.
Like the veterans center it’s replacing at Talihina, the center at Sallisaw will be licensed for 175 nursing care beds, said Shawn Kirkland, director of homes for the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs. All of the rooms will be private, he said.
The agency budgeted $77 million for the Sallisaw center, and it is projected to open in the summer of 2023, Kirkland said. The new facility will be south of Drake Road off Kerr Boulevard, less than three miles south of Interstate 40.
The project will be financed with a grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs that will pay 65% of the cost, and the state will pay the other 35%, Kirkland said.
The Talihina veterans center will remain open “as we transition to the new center in Sallisaw,” and afterward the property will be sold, he said. The 219,011 square-foot center was built in 1921, records reflect.
New Ardmore center
to house more veterans
The new center at Ardmore will be considerably larger than the existing facility and will accommodate several dozen more veterans.
The existing center encompasses almost 159,000 square feet of space among all of the buildings on the campus, Kirkland said. The new center will have approximately 250,000 square feet of space, he said.
The existing Ardmore center, like the one at Talihina, is licensed for 175 beds, but the new facility will accommodate 242 veterans, Kirkland said.
The existing Ardmore Veterans Center is a historic site situated on 55 acres of lawns, gardens, and fields. The site is located on U.S. Highway 77 (1015 S. Commerce) in the southwest section of Ardmore.
The original buildings of the center were constructed in 1910 as a home for Civil War veterans of the Confederacy. It became a state veterans center in 1949, state statutes indicate.
Oklahoma also had a home where elderly Civil War soldiers from the Army of the Potomac were housed, in northeastern Oklahoma City. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, that home closed in 1933.
The new Ardmore center will be financed with a grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, coupled with $35 million in net proceeds from a state revenue bond sale that was held May 18 and closed June 14. Southwest Ledger was unable to determine how much the new Ardmore center will cost in total, despite repeated inquiries sent to ODVA officials.
The Ardmore lease revenue bonds will be retired over a 25-year period. The debt service over that period totals $66,395,596, including $36,985,000 in principal plus $29,410,596 in interest, bond sale documents indicate.
The bonds received a “AA-” rating from both Fitch and Standard & Poor’s, one notch below Oklahoma’s “AA” issuer default rating, “which reflects the optionality inherent in the expected repayment of the bonds” with annual appropriations from the Legislature to the ODVA.
Ardmore center
will offer choices
Ardmore’s new veterans center will offer an innovative housing choice for 242 veterans that continues the trend away from outdated institutional care models, the ODVA reported. The design is based on a hybrid model of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs small house design guidelines and embraces a model where the veteran and his family control daily decisions about care.
Veterans will be organized into 20-unit “houses,” each house fully supporting daily care needs of the veteran through arrangement of spaces. A house will include private resident suites with a bedroom, bathroom, and shower for each veteran, arranged around familiar residential scale spaces such as an entry foyer, living room and den.
The 20-bed houses will be paired into “neighborhoods” of 40 units that share common kitchens, dining rooms, spas and treatment rooms among other amenities. The six neighborhoods will be connected via enclosed walkways to a central community center where veteran residents and their families may enjoy the game room, café, barbershop, library and other large gathering spaces and amenities not found in their own house or neighborhood.
The wide variety of spaces means that the veteran residents will have choices about how to spend their day: where to eat, where to visit and how to spend their time. “Being able to make choices as a part of daily living reinforces a sense of dignity and self-determination that supports an improved quality of life,” the ODVA said.
Ardmore’s new center will be a single-story building “fully accessible for veterans with mobility issues.” The household design model where residents are arranged in smaller groups supports active engagement for those who may struggle with dementia and other cognitive and physical limitations. The limited size of individual houses, along with advanced ventilation and filtration design, lends itself to good infection control and the ability to isolate groups of residents when needed without depriving them of familiar spaces and routines, ODVA officials said.
Repairs planned at
all 7 veterans centers
Oklahoma has seven veterans centers with a capacity for 1,423 military veterans, and is authorized a staff of 2,071 employees, Kirkland said. The oldest veteran in a state center is a 103 year-old Navy veteran of WW II.
Besides construction of the two new centers, the ODVA has several other major repair projects under way or planned at the state’s veterans centers. Those include:
Ÿ upgrade of the heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems at the Lawton, Clinton, Claremore, Norman and Sulphur centers.
Ÿ upgrade of the ODVA’s telephone, wireless access and security camera system.
Ÿ fire protection upgrades at Ardmore, Claremore, Clinton, Norman, Sulphur and Talihina.
Ÿ emergency generator upgrades at Clinton, Lawton, Norman, Sulphur, Claremore and Ardmore.