Firm earns contract at cemetery

The centerpiece of the $3.48-million expansion at the Florida National Cemetery near Bushnell will be a columbarium to hold the cremated remains of about 16,000 veterans.

By CHASE SQUIRES

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 9, 2000

DADE CTIY -- A Dade City company landed a $3.4-million federal contract this week to build a structure for the cremated remains of military veterans at the Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell.

According to Rep. Karen Thurman, D-Dunnellon, the structure -- called a columbarium -- will provide above-ground space for about 16,000 sets of remains on 10 acres. Work is expected to begin this summer.

The Dade City heavy construction company Cascade Mechanical Inc., on Trilby Road, landed the contract and is expected to finish by Veterans Day of next year. The contract is worth $3,484,000.

Bobby Hodges, a spokesman at the Bushnell cemetery, said about 25 veterans are buried there each day. Most veterans who served active military duty are eligible for burial at the site, about 9 miles west of Bushnell, Hodges said.

The structure will be the first of its kind at the Bushnell cemetery.

The state's sale of more than 100 acres to the federal government last fall for more grave sites at the cemetery was controversial. With an estimated 1.7-million war veterans living in Florida, the cemetery is the third busiest of its kind in the United States. Since it opened in 1988, there have been about 40,000 burials. At the current pace, all 150,000 plots in the original 400 acres would have been used within the next 10 to 15 years, officials say.

But environmentalists fought the expansion, saying it took a bite out of environmentally sensitive land in the Withlacoochee State Forest.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cabinet approved the sale in October.

The columbarium project was approved by Congress last year, but funding was just recently released by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The project includes niches to hold urns containing ashes, two shelters for families to hold funerals and new roads to reach the development.

In a news release, Thurman called the project, "A very fitting tribute to our aging veterans who want to be buried among other service men and women who shared their unwavering commitment to this country."

Information from Times files was included in this report.

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