VETERANS
U.S. ARMY
The new nursing home will be named after
Spc. 4 Ardie R. Copas, seen in his daughter’s
favorite photo of him.
Port St. Lucie Magazine 9
County, had the
same opinion
because he tried to
make daily visits
to his daughter
who is an Air Force
veteran, when she
was in a hospital
in Miami. “Traveling
can be a bear
in some areas for
some people who
are older.”
“To know you
have family around
you is so much
more comforting,”
Depagnier says.
“It’s just going to
make it so much
easier. Travel time
and the ability to have them right there near you, that’s the
whole story. But a nursing home with 120 beds can only
serve half of 1 percent of the veterans in the area it serves, so
it is going to be a hard process to decide who gets in.”
It will serve more than 220,000 veterans within a 75-mile
radius of Port St. Lucie.
The home will be a skilled nursing facility and the first in
the state to have all single rooms. Half the beds will be for
dementia and Alzheimer’s patients. There will be 190 people
on staff, and additional people providing contracted services
such as physical therapy. Groundbreaking is expected in late
spring, with completion of the one-floor facility in late 2017
or early 2018.
The state’s decision to locate the home in St. Lucie County
was the result of a months-long, intensive campaign by a
team of people that involved the county’s grant writer, the
head of Veteran Services, the chairwoman of the St. Lucie
County Commission, the city of Port St. Lucie, state legislators,
veterans organizations throughout the Treasure Coast
and hundreds and hundreds of emails and phone calls from
veterans and their families.
The work began in February 2014 when the county was
notified by the state that it could apply to compete with other
cities for the state’s seventh nursing home. From there on
“it was a rocket ride,” says Wayne Teegardin, manager of
Veteran Services of St. Lucie County. “We were sure we met
all the criteria. We had a hospital, police station, fire station,
restaurants all close by, and we had bus service.”
They rushed to do soil borings on the 28.5-acre property
near Tradition Medical Center and meet the rest of the requirements
before the application deadline in May. “We had
a 600-page application and they wanted 11 copies of it. We
were afraid to try to ship it, so I drove it across the state to
Largo and it was so massive that I had to have a handcart to
get it in to them.”
In September, the governor and Cabinet named Tradition
as the site of the new nursing home.
“This is overwhelmingly positive for the city,” says Mayor
Greg Oravec, who took over the job from his predecessor
JoAnn Faiella two months after the Cabinet decision. “It is
part of having a veteran-friendly city and it shows we are
truly a city for all ages.” >>
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