Veterans’ Nursing Home Gets Bigger Footprint

The proposed Veterans’ Nursing Home grew from its original 12-acre site to 18 acres and received a boost from the state via Senate President Kathleen Passidomo.

The county has asked the state to match $10 million in funds from the State Legislature to construct additional square footage not funded by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs Construction Grand Program. The additional money would go towards adult day health care and outpatient therapy services.

Passidomo, who has been instrumental in getting $14 million worth of project appropriations for the county this year, was in attendance along with Bob Asztalos, Deputy Executive Director, and Al Carter, Chief of Staff from the Florida Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

Collier County Commissioner Burt Saunders and then House Representative Passidomo had talked about a veterans’ nursing home almost eight years ago. “When we originally were looking at it, we had a site. Unfortunately, it was kind of far out and it wasn't near a whole lot of services at the time. Today it's probably in the middle of the town,” Passidomo chuckled. “But eight years ago, it wasn’t.”

The County had already brought forward $30 million towards the facility, which Passidomo said was a “game changer.” The additional $10 million Commissioners agreed to earlier this month depends on the state legislature’s $10 million match. 

“My commitment is to help you with the funding,” Passidomo said.

“I’ll do whatever I can to help because we have so many veterans in Collier County,” Passidomo said, “and they’re moving to the state more and more.”

Passidomo talks about her priority for the next legislative session being “Live Healthy,” and part of that is bringing more healthcare providers to Florida. “We’re working on that this summer to pass some legislation to attract healthcare workers to the state,” she said. “That, coupled with the workforce housing which you will have near this facility, is going to make this veterans facility probably one of the best in the country. I want to thank you for your vision, and I will do whatever I can to see it to fruition.” 

The county-owned Golden Gate Golf Course originally had the Veterans’ Nursing Home slated to be built on 12 acres with Big Shots Golf bringing an entertainment complex on 18 acres. But just recently, Big Shots Golf backed out of their lease. 

“There's no one in the room that's more disappointed than I am that Big Shots canceled their lease,” said Saunders. “None of us could have foreseen that. I believe Topgolf is buying Big Shots and Topgolf doesn't want a competitor this close. And so they canceled the deal. And quite frankly, the folks at ClubCorp at Big Shots really just weren't communicating with us. They weren't really honest with us as to what was really going on.”

The larger 18-acre footprint gives the facility the opportunity to be on one floor. And the additional 10 million the County is contributing with the potential $10 million from the state. “We should be able to build a first-class nursing home with all the other amenities,” said Saunders.

“I don’t even want to call this a state veteran nursing home. This is really going to be a long-term care community. This is going to be a role model for the country,” said Asztalos. “We have to look at who is going to be our clients, right? It's not the World War Two generation. It's not the Korean War. It'll be some of the Vietnam War. But it's that next generation. It's the 9/11 veterans who need more rehab services. They have prosthetics. We have one of the highest populations of women veterans in the country, 162,000. We are going to see more women veterans coming into our homes. So we have to have services that meet their needs. And that's what we're looking to do.”

Board Chair Commissioner LoCastro said, “We never wanted the next nursing home. We wanted the best one. This is going to be a veterans’ nursing home that’s going to be a benchmark.”

Commissioners voted 5-0 to move the site from the original 12 acres to the larger 18 acres.

That leaves the 12-acre site open. Commissioners discussed the county developing an affordable 12-hole golf course for citizens that would also be a home for First Tee, an organization that uses golf to help kids with life skills. Saunders read a letter in support from Reinhold Schmieding, President of Arthrex. “On behalf of Arthrex and over 4,000 employees and their families in Collier County, we would like to advise our county government leadership of the importance of having a public golf course for our local families and children,” the letter said. He also pointed out that the county has considered developing a golf course that offers deep discounts to the community for the past 30 to 40 years. “This is really the best opportunity if we’re going to have public golf,” he said.

“Is this going to be a huge positive for the community and really an investment?” asked LoCastro. “I feel it is.”

Commissioners voted 4-1 to move forward with the golf course development.