Construction work continues on Lenoir Co. veterans' nursing home

Despite threats of rain and wind from Hurricane Earl, workers tasked with building a state veterans nursing home for Lenoir County remained on-site Thursday preparing the foundations for the buildings.

After three years of delays — because of the scarcity of federal funding for the state’s $26 million project to build homes in Lenoir and Buncombe Counties — construction began in mid-July at the Hull Road site. The grants from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs were approved in April.

“I haven’t missed a day since they started moving dirt,” George Graham, chairman of the Lenoir County Board of Commissioners, said Thursday of visiting the site. “I’m just elated.”

Workers with general contractor John S. Clark Co. LLC of Mount Airy, plus subcontractors L.L. Vann Electric Inc. of Raleigh and Sasser Grading and Drainage Inc. of Grifton, could be seen performing the various stages of preparing the foundations for five buildings that will be interconnected once the home opens in the spring of 2012.

Charles Smith, director of the N.C. Division of Veterans Affairs, said construction is scheduled to be finished in the winter of 2012 and the home should open that spring.

On Thursday, workers were taking rough measurements for underground electric lines on one foundation that concrete footers had already been poured for.

On another foundation, trucks with Sasser dumped mounds of dirt and an earth-mover smoothed them out even as rain began to patter down.

Graham said he and other county officials are beginning to coordinate with the N.C. Elks Association and local veterans organizations.

The collaboration is needed, Graham said, to provide assistance to families of nursing home residents who are visiting from out of town, and obtain equipment for the home if there is not enough money in the budget to purchase them, which the Elks have done for residents of other state homes.

“One of our roles in Lenoir County is to ensure our community is as accommodating as it possibly can be. … We competed (for the home) and we’re very proud and excited to get it here in Lenoir County, and it’s going to make a tremendous difference,” Graham said.

David Anderson can be reached at 252-559-1077 or danderson@freedomenc.com.