Funding officially puts Augusta veterans cemetery in motion

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - More than $13.6 million in federal funding has been officially awarded to build a long-awaited veterans cemetery in Augusta.

The grant from the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration will establish the cemetery on more than 200 acres behind East Central Regional Hospital off Tobacco Road.

It will be the largest veterans cemetery in Georgia.

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The funding was appropriated through federal legislation, according to U.S. Rep. Rick Allen.

“Funding for the long-awaited veterans cemetery in Augusta has now been officially awarded to the State of Georgia,” Allen said in a statement. “To our veterans and their families in the CSRA and surrounding communities: the tireless work that brought us to this point is for you.”

Allen praised former Augusta Mayor Bob Young and Augusta District 5 Commissioner Don Clark for pushing the project forward. Young first proposed the cemetery in 2001.

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Plans call for an administration building, a maintenance building with a covered wash bay, a committal service shelter and an assembly area. The grounds will feature 600 full casketed gravesites, 1,500 pre-placed crypts, 900 in-ground cremation gravesites, 960 columbarium niches, and a memorial wall with 140 plaques, along with roadways, irrigation and infrastructure.

Groundbreaking is scheduled for November, with construction expected to take a year and a half.

The cemetery will be open to all veterans and their spouses who qualify with a DD-214, with no residency requirements.

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For decades, local military families have had to travel long distances for burial services, often driving to Fort Jackson in Columbia or to the Georgia Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Milledgeville.

A nonprofit organization, the CSRA Veterans Cemetery Fund, is also working to raise an additional $705,000 to add amenities to the site, including a bell tower, water features, and memorial benches.