VETERANS: CONSTRUCTION OF FACILITY IS ON SCHEDULE IN ANNA

ANNA, Ill. -- Construction on the $3.9 million Anna Veterans Center is on schedule, and state officials look to a June 1993 opening of the 60-bed facility.

Tom Kiefner of Kiefner Construction Co., Cape Girardeau, said Friday that site work is complete and the earth work is done.

"We have completed slabs and foundation work, and the steel is set," he said. "We're putting a metal roof on the deck now."

The facility will be situated on a 16-acre tract near the Clyde Choate Mental Health Developmental Center.

The 60-bed facility will include 50 beds for skilled nursing care and 10 for residential care patients.

"Plans call for 23 two-bed rooms and four single-bed rooms," noted Kiefner.

The apartment-type, or residential care, units will include beds, a small stove, refrigerator, dining area and pantry, bath and small utility room.

A television room and resident lounge will be located near the dining/multipurpose rooms.

Included in the facility will be rooms for physical and rehabilitative therapy, dining and dental care. Plans also call for an on-site pharmacy. The veterans home will also provide skilled nursing care.

"This project has been on the drawing board for several years, and I am pleased that the state is now going forward with it," said Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar when he announced the $3.9 million funding last summer.

"The addition of a veterans home in this area will help us care for veterans and eliminate the need for them to travel far from their families and friends for that care," said Edgar. "It will provide also substantial economic benefits to an area were unemployment is well above the state average."

The new center will provide employment for 60 to 70 persons.

The Illinois General Assembly appropriated $3.9 million for the new building. The state will be reimbursed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for 65 percent of the cost about $2.5 million when construction is completed.

The Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs will operate the veterans home when it is completed.

The Anna center has been in the planning stage for more than a decade. The original proposal was made in 1978 with a plan to renovate two existing buildings on the grounds of the Anna Mental Health and Development Center.

Architects who made a study of the two existing buildings concluded that renovations of the Athens and Lence Buildings would not be feasible and recommended a new building for the proposed veterans care facility.

It was determined that the two buildings were not large enough to hold the programs for the center.

Statistics show there are more than 71,000 veterans now living in Southern Illinois and many of those veterans will be over the age of 70 by the year 2000.

The state currently supports three other veteran homes, located at Quincy, Mantaeno and LaSalle.