Sallisaw Veterans Center dedication climaxes long journey to completion

The day many may have wondered if it would ever arrive has, indeed, arrived.

Six years, seven months and 241 days since Sallisaw’s quest to become the home for Oklahoma’s premier veterans center began, Friday’s dedication of the $90 million state-of-the-art facility will climax an arduous and long-anticipated journey that has been fraught with cost increases, an eight-month work stoppage, a lawsuit against the project’s original architect and oversight by three different Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs executive directors.

The 215,000-square-foot center, built on 35 of the 90 acres set aside by the city situated a mile south of I-40 along U.S. 59, will open its doors to veteran residents beginning at 10 a.m. Friday.

The completion of the sprawling center — delayed three times from its original March 2023 target date — represents the ODVA’s ongoing commitment to ensuring that Oklahoma’s veterans receive the highest standards of care in a comfortable and supportive environment, the ODVA says. The long-term nursing facility, the ODVA says, will provide comprehensive services, including skilled nursing care, rehabilitation and specialized programs to enhance the well-being of its residents.

The state-of-the-art Sallisaw Veterans Center consists of four connected buildings, each named in honor of a notable Oklahoman in the military. With a total of 175 single-occupancy rooms, the facility is designed to provide a home-like environment. The centralized community center offers a reception area, dining room, multipurpose room that can be used as a theater or chapel, space for arts and crafts, barber shop, physical therapy room, pharmacy to serve medical needs of the residents and recreational courtyards. The center is expected to employ 275 people.

The project has received substantial support from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs through the State Home Construction Grant Program, which provided 65% of the total funding.

Sallisaw beat out finalists Poteau and Muskogee as the site for the new eastern Oklahoma veterans center location. At the beginning of the selection process, there were six communities, which also included McAlester, Hugo and Holdenville.

But what was originally viewed as a rather swift process to completion soon stretched to years.

Background

Following the Sept. 23, 2020, ground breaking, construction of the long-term care facility made major strides during the initial year, with the skeleton of the expansive center quickly taking shape.

But for the majority of 2022 — from February until October 7 — virtually no work was being done while the massive center consisted primarily of exterior walls overlayed with green house wrap.

The eight-month work stoppage occurred when a dispute arose between the ODVA and the project’s architectural/ engineering firm, which included claims that “the company made significant mistakes during construction, and parts of the building were not up to code.”

In March 2023, the Oklahoma Veterans Commission approved a request for more than $21.7 million to subsidize the construction project. The Oklahoma Legislature subsequently approved the funding, and the project has been in high gear ever since.

In a subsequent $20 million lawsuit filed in August 2023 against the firm as well as the project advisors, the ODVA claimed building code violations and failure to account for “federally protected wetlands which had been unlawfully disturbed” during construction, which were at the heart of the delays in completing the project.

Following the work stoppage, the projected final cost to complete the veterans center soared from less than $77 million to $90 million, and the opening of the center was delayed from the original March 2023 date to April 2024. The completion date was subsequently revised to October 2024, then to January 2025.

In June 2023, it was announced operational challenges and massive financial deficits had forced the Talihina Veterans Home to be shuttered by Oct. 1. But within a week, state legislators pushed back on the decision, claiming that the closure of the Latimer County facility had been put on indefinite hold, with the expectation that the home would remain open until the Sallisaw center is complete. But the Talihina home closed on Oct. 31, 2023.

Timeline

June 2018

Six communities — Sallisaw, Poteau, Muskogee, McAlester, Hugo and Holdenville — emerged as candidates for the new veterans home

June 25, 2018

ODVA issued a request for proposal for the relocation of the center

Aug. 8, 2018

Officials from Sallisaw, Poteau and Muskogee visited a veterans center in Lawton in preparation for their presentation to the ODVA

Aug. 29, 2018

Deadline for submission of proposals to the ODVA for those communities interested in competing, which is when Sallisaw submitted its proposal, which included $1.4 million in proposed incentives

Sept. 24, 2018

City Manager Keith Skelton presented Sallisaw’s pitch to the Oklahoma Veterans Commission

Oct. 26, 2018

Oklahoma Veterans Commission announced Sallisaw as its selection for the newest veterans center. The vote was 7-1 for Sallisaw

Nov. 14, 2018

City Manager Keith Skelton said at a special meeting of the city commissioners that it could take up to three years to construct the new veterans center

March 27, 2019

Federal funding is approved for the construction of the veterans center

April 2019

The 90 acres on which the center is built was valued at $780,000. The Cherokee Nation donated $300,000 toward the purchase of the land, and Cherokee Nation Tribal Councilmen E.O. Smith and Bryan Warner pledged a combined $500,000 from tribal funds toward road and parking lot construction.

April 8, 2019

Sallisaw city commissioners approved inter-local agreement among the city, Sallisaw Economic Authority, Oklahoma Office of Management and the ODVA.

Mid-April 2019

Design of the facility was expected to begin. Construction was expected to take about 2½ years

July 1, 2019

City completed purchase of 90 acres for the veterans center

Sept. 25, 2020

Long-awaited day arrives as ground is broken for veterans center. At the time, completion of the center was projected to be fall 2022.

December 21, 2020

Construction crews started moving dirt at the site for the veterans center. The timeframe for completion was set at 18 to 24 months (by Jan. 1, 2023)

February to October 7, 2022

Work grinds to a halt at the construction site due to a dispute with the contractor, which included a change in the architecture and engineering team. In addition to the project cost mushrooming to $90 million, the delay pushed back the opening of the center by 13 months, from March 2023 to April 2024. The completion date was subsequently revised to October 2024, then to January 2025.

March 10, 2023

Embattled Joel Kintsel fired as executive director of ODVA

March 13, 2023

Greg Slavonic’s first day as interim executive director of the ODVA

March 22, 2023

Oklahoma Veterans Commission approved requesting more than $21.7 million in supplemental funding from the Oklahoma Legislature to offset cost increases and the eight-month work stoppage that resulted in a lawsuit being filed against the project’s original architectural firm

Oct. 31, 2023

Talihina Veterans Home closes. The 36 remaining veterans at the colossal facility were transferred to other Oklahoma veterans homes. The Talihina residents top the list of those to be placed in the Sallisaw facility when it is completed. The century-old veterans home, which was originally built in 1921 as a tuberculosis sanatorium with many of the original buildings still standing, but abandoned, was opened on July 1, 1975, as a veterans home

July 2024

Greg Slavonic resigns as executive director of the ODVA

August 1, 2024

James Bynum’s first day as executive director of the ODVA

Feb. 21, 2025

Dedication of the Sallisaw Veterans Center