WASHINGTON – Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs William F. Tuerk today unveiled a model for the new VA cemetery near West Palm Beach and announced the facility would be called the “SouthFloridaNationalCemetery.”
The 313-acre cemetery, in Lake Worth on U.S. 441, is expected to open for burial in the winter of 2006-07. More than 350,000 veterans live within the area it will serve.
Tuerk presided over a short ceremony and was joined by Rep. Mark Foley (R-16th Dist.) at the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center.
“South Florida is a VA priority for building a much-needed veterans cemetery,” said Tuerk. “With construction of the new cemetery, veterans and their families can look forward to peace of mind knowing that they can have their final resting place in a nearby national shrine under the flag of the country they served.”
VA expects to award a construction contract and begin initial construction this spring. The initial construction will include modular buildings for administrative and maintenance operations, and a small burial area of eight acres for immediate use.
The complete Phase I design calls for developing approximately 65 acres that will provide 23,000 gravesites for casket interments, most of which will be pre-placed crypts; a 15,000-niche columbarium and 3,100 in-ground sites for cremation burials; and a garden for scattering cremated remains.
Additional Phase 1 developments include an entrance area, flag and assembly area, committal service shelters, public information center with restrooms, administration and maintenance complex; roads, utilities signage, fencing and landscaping.
Florida’s other four national cemeteries are Barrancas in Pensacola, Florida in Bushnell, St. Augustine and Bay Pines. The Barrancas and Florida national cemeteries have space available for casketed and cremated remains. Bay Pines has space available for cremated remains and can accommodate casketed remains in the gravesites of previously interred family members. St. Augustine is closed to new interments, but can bury family members in existing gravesites.
In addition to the South Florida National Cemetery, VA is planning future national cemeteries in the Jacksonville and Sarasota areas. Veterans with a discharge other than dishonorable, their spouses and eligible dependent children can be buried in a national cemetery. Other burial benefits include a burial flag, Presidential Memorial Certificate and government headstone or marker – even if they are not buried in a national cemetery.
In the midst of the largest cemetery expansion since the Civil War, VA operates 122 national cemeteries in 39 states and Puerto Rico, and 33 soldiers' lots and monument sites. More than three million Americans, including veterans of every war and conflict — from the Revolutionary War to the current global war on terror — are buried in VA’s national cemeteries on more than 14,200 acres of land.
Information on VA burial benefits can be obtained from national cemetery offices, from the Internet at http://www.cem.va.gov or by calling VA regional offices toll-free at 1-800-827-1000.
For information on the SouthFloridaNationalCemetery, call the cemetery office at 561-422-2318.
