Cemetery committee, federal VA officials meet on master plan

By CARA LORELLO

Staff Reporter

Members of the governance committee for the Eastern Washington State Veterans Cemetery will meet with federal Veteran Administration officials from the nation's capital this month to discuss details of the proposed master plan design the committee's team of architects created last spring.

Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs Director John Lee announced via the department's online monthly newsletter that the next step for the project is WDVA continuing to work with the Federal VA State Cemetery Grant Program to receive final approval on its proposed master plan.

“Once the plan is approved, the construction team can move forward with the cemetery design. A meeting with the Federal VA is being scheduled in order to determine what additional information or revisions are needed to the Master Plan,” Lee said.

Officials from Washington D.C., WDVA headquarters in Olympia, and representatives of the committee and its design team will do a walk-through tour of the cemetery site, located on 80 acres off Espanola Road outside Medical Lake. The tour will be followed up with discussion on the proposed plan.

Project financier Gary Condra, chief Financial officer for WDVA, reported in October that the cemetery project got ranked No. 8 on the DVA State and Tribal Cemetery Construction grant program's list of funded cemetery projects for 2009. Fifty-five projects made the list, the first eight being established cemeteries that got allocated funding for expansion or improvements. Eastern Washington got ranked No. 1 for new projects.

At that time, the cemetery committee hoped feedback would come next from D.C. on its design plans so bidding for construction could start by next spring. Funding for the $8.8 million project won't be allocated until that process is through.

WDVA communications director Heidi Audette said on Dec. 1 that the timeframe the committee had hoped to get a conformation by is somewhat behind schedule, but delays aren't to the point that the project will lose its promised funds or have its deadlines pushed back.

“The timeframe for finalizing design plans is next July, at which point they will go out to bid,” Audette said.

Landscape architects of JGM & Associates created the cemetery design for the master plan last February, chosen from three out of six total design schemes. Construction will happen in two phases, phase one being construction of an entrance, columbarium, administration and maintenance building, a public information center, scattering gardens, committal shelter, service paths, flag assembly area, and boulevard stretch.

There's the possibility that total funding for the project could be raised to $9.5 million, which Condra said is about equal to cost estimates for the first phase of construction. In light of the continuing financial crunch the nation is facing, capital officials may look to save money wherever is necessary, cemetert spokesman Richard Cesler said, so there could be some adjustments in terms of available funds, and that could mean alterations to the proposed design scheme in terms of development.

The focus, however, won't change, he added, and that is coordinating the best possible plan for the money. Cookie-cutter approaches don't apply when designing a project of this kind, he added, which should impart “a strong visual impact” that properly commemorates those it is built to honor, Cesler said.

“The governance committee, our design architects and myself are 100 percent committed to moving this project forward, but in the right manner. This meeting is to ensure we are all on the same page to get the product that our veteran community is going to demand from us,” Cesler said.

More information on the Eastern Washington State Veterans Cemetery project can be found at http://www.dva.wa.gov/eastern_wa_vet_cemetery.html.

Cara Lorello can be reached at [email protected]