Construction on veterans home to begin in spring

It's been a long wait for many north state veterans and their families.

But construction of a state-owned and -operated veterans home in Shasta County is expected to finally begin in April. The facility is planned for a site on Knighton Road.

State officials recently announced that two Southern California-based companies have been chosen to build the planned 150-bed, $60 million veterans home in southeast Redding.

The 127,000-square-foot project will be constructed by the design-build team of Clark Design/Build of California, Inc., of Costa Mesa, along with Pasadena-based Jacobs Engineering, officials with the Department of General Services (DGS) and the California Department of Veterans Affairs said.

Associate Architect SFCS, Inc. of Roanoke, Va., will serve as the project architect. Meanwhile, Clark Design/Build has also committed to do more than 5 percent of its subcontracting with disabled veteran businesses, which adds up to more than $3.3 million in direct subcontractor participation to the disabled veteran business community.

The effort to build the state-owned veterans home began in earnest in 2000, and it's been estimated that it will take about two years to build it.

State officials have said that the veterans home will be a far cry from a nursing home and will feature private rooms to provide a much more home-like environment. The facility will offer 42 skilled nursing beds, as well as eight respite, 16 dementia and 84 assisted living beds.

The federal government will pay 65 percent of the construction cost with the state picking up the rest.