With the State of Florida having the third largest population of Veterans in the U.S., the Ardie R. Copas State Veterans’ Nursing Home is helping to meet a need by providing Veterans access to advanced methods of care. Located on 28 acres, the new nursing home has 66 semi-private rooms, including 60 beds for residents with dementia, and a central welcoming space, known as “The Heroes Center,” with residential amenities such as a lobby, barbershop, dentist, dining facilities, and chapel.
An integrated team of VHB civil engineers and landscape designers worked collaboratively to enrich the nursing home’s built and natural environments with places of comfort, respite, and honor for residents and their families. This holistic focus on rest, safety, and sensory elements helped create stress-reducing environments. Residents, families, and visitors in each neighborhood can visit secure healing gardens with comfortable benches, a looped pathway, raised beds for gardening activities, and tropical plantings.
The project is one of the first in the country to employ a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs delivery method that accelerates and streamlines design and development for critical projects that advance Veteran care via designated funding to state agencies.
