Veterans home behind schedule

Friday, March 10, 2000 | 12:37 p.m.

Construction is running about a month behind on the $19.4 million veterans home in Boulder City, but the skilled nursing facility should be ready to open by late summer or early fall, the chief of the state's Veterans Services Commission said.

Ray Alcorn said the delay is the result of minor conflicts between the general contractor and his sub-contractors that have been resolved. To a lesser degree, wet weather in recent weeks has also contributed to the delays.

"We've had to make a few architectural changes," Alcorn said. "But we do not have great concern over this because no project is ever built without some changes (to the original plans).

"When we start putting the drywall up, we'll have 40 workers on the project, and the work will go faster," he said.

At 9 a.m. Saturday, members of the Nevada Veterans Advisory Commission are scheduled to tour the facility at 100 Veterans Way, which features a foundation and, as Alcorn put it, "a whole lot of steel sticking out of the ground."

Construction began on the facility last October on the western edge of Boulder City north of U.S. 93.

Last year, before the groundbreaking, a July 2000 opening date was predicted, but that was changed to August a short time later. Now the facility is projected to open in early September, Alcorn said.

The project's concept is to simulate a small town inside a building, with corridors having street names so that the residents will feel more like they are living in apartment homes rather than in hospital rooms.

Alcorn, a 30-year veteran of the Navy who during the Vietnam War was a prisoner at the infamous Hanoi Hilton, took the Veterans Services Commission post last June. He said one of his highest priorities is getting the veterans home operational in a timely manner.

The Boulder City facility will provide nursing care for aging and ailing veterans who cannot afford private group home care.