Maintenance money likely coming to Jacobetti Home
The next state budget will likely send hundreds of thousands of dollars to Marquette’s Jacobetti Home for Veterans. The one-time funding would be spent on maintenance and repairs. ABC 10 senior reporter Mike Hoey looks at some of the work that would take place.
The Jacobetti Home for Veterans is located in the former St. Mary’s Hospital, one of the two hospitals that merged in 1973 to form Marquette General.
“The Jacobetti Home over the years has done a good job of maintaining our physical plant and stretching our resources to do that,” administrator Brad Slagle said. “For an older building, we’re not in horrible shape, but we have plenty of projects that we need to do.”
Governor Rick Snyder’s budget proposal has $3 million in one-time maintenance funding for the state’s two veterans homes, Jacobetti and Grand Rapids. If the legislature approves that amount, Jacobetti officials expect to have about $1 million to work with.
“There’s a roof on our Part F wing that has gone through its useful life, so we want to replace that,” physical plant superintendent Mike Harrington said.
He and Slagle also say a boiler in the southern wing needs to be replaced, as well as hot water heaters and recirculating lines in the hot water system. “We do have some air handlers in the building that are pretty old,” Harrington said. “We have some original ones from the late ’50s on the west end of the building.”
The home’s main entrance is being remodeled through the use of one-time maintenance dollars that it received last year. That same capital outlay also covered the cost of a brand-new family room, which is still being worked on, and an interior courtyard. Slagle says the governor and the legislature have always been very supportive of the Jacobetti Home.
“We really do appreciate grass-roots support, especially from the veterans’ organizations,” Slagle said. “They show up in Lansing, they make sure that Marquette’s not forgotten, and we’re seeing the benefits of that.”
In the near future, the home’s Board of Managers will receive a recommendation list of projects that should be funded.