South Augusta’s rural Gracewood area is the designated site for a state veterans cemetery. The Georgia House voted unanimously this week supporting the measure, and now the plans move to budget-writing meetings this week.
The House already has a proposed budget that the governor sent over, and it will change hands a few times before finalization in the coming days.
“This is a state project, but we are the advocates,” said Bob Young, former mayor of Augusta. “The concept is in place. We’ve done a lot of homework and garnered support for what the benefits are for the community and for the veterans.”
The “we” that Young is referring to here is himself and Don Clark, formerly with Forces United, who has been one of Young’s main partners in getting this plan developed and ready to send to state legislators.
“This is an idea I put out there 20 years ago when I was mayor,” Young said. “We were close to getting the cemetery, planned for Fort Gordon, but the attacks in 2001 totally changed the security environment of the military and ruled out that site.”
The idea laid dormant for years until Augusta commissioner Bill Fennoy suggested Clark and Young rekindle the concept and work to get it moving.
Augusta-based architecture firm 2KM Architects were hired by the state to build the other two state veterans cemetery in Milledgeville and Glennville, and they entered the mix as a professional consultant for Clark and Young.
“They were intimately familiar with the VA rules, and they aided us in putting material together to take to the state and governor,” Young said.
The idea of a Gracewood location came about when the state tasked Young with finding a location.
“The VA will pay for the construction of the cemetery,” Young said. “The VA will not pay for the land for the cemetery. The state must provide that.”
So, Young and his partners looked at properties that the state already owned, and came across a several-hundred acre plot in Gracewood that’s largely undeveloped.
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“Last summer, we brought Commissioner Mike Roby from the Veterans Service Department, and we walked the land,” Young said. “They were blown away. They said it was a perfect site.”
Young mentioned Gracewood’s distance from the busy parts of Augusta but still relative closeness would provide both convenient access and economic development for the South Augusta area.
“Best case scenario going forward is the House is able to put the $1 million needed for planning in the budget on their side, and it moves to the Senate where we’ve been working with Senators Harold Jones and Max Burns, who will back us,” Young said.
“They’re going to try and protect it and we’re working through potential issues with the land with the State Properties Commission should we successfully get the plans in the budget.”
More news out of the budget meetings should emerge soon, allowing for more insight into the status on the cemetery and what other hurdles might arise.
Tyler Strong is the Business Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at tyler@theaugustapress.com
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