Towering tribute: An inside look at massive new Veterans Home rising in Holyoke

HOLYOKE — At 150 feet in height and with a floor plan of 350,000 square feet, the new Veterans Home in Holyoke would tower above the naves of most European cathedrals, including Notre Dame in Paris and Cologne Cathedral in Germany, and has the spaciousness of early-modern skyscrapers.

The imposing building is one of the largest projects to come to western Massachusetts in at least a decade, and when it’s completed will have 234 long-term care beds, a specialized memory care unit and a 40-person adult day health program.

The $482 million redevelopment is being overseen by construction managers from Commodore and Walsh, who, along with state officials, recently gave the Gazette a behind-the-scenes tour of the project that’s now less than a year from completion.

Veteran and now resident of the current Veterans Home, Bob Simpson, has had a front row seat to the process since May 2024 after he moved in. Back then, the new facility that will become his new home in the fall of 2026 was a clump of scaffolding and only three stories in height.

Simpson, who served in the Marine Corp straight out of high school, from 1953 until 1961, and then stayed on for a number of years as a reserve, said he is looking forward to maybe having a chance to be on the top floor of the new building. The eight-story structure provides views stretching as far as Hartford to the south.

“This is my final home. I sold my awesome home of over 60 years to be here,” Simpson said, praising the staff that supports him as being attentive and full of “great people that are helpful and nice.”

The new facility at 110 Cherry St. dwarfs the current 120,000-square-foot building, which is located next door and went up in 1949. Simpson still has some progress to watch unfold before his next home will be open to veterans two months ahead of schedule.

But until then, he will continue watching the progress from his wheelchair on the front porch of his current residence. The two are so close together that there is simply an electrical line separating the new from the old.

By Thanksgiving, exterior masonry will be completed after the process of laying down some 600,000 bricks, which began on Feb. 18 this year.

And that process of laying down individual bricks hasn’t been without its complications due to the curvature of the building.

“The curves were a nightmare” said Will Schuster, the project executive with Commodore and Walsh, the building firms teaming up to oversee the project.

“Don’t expect to see a straight wall in this building,” he added.

From an aerial view, the roof of the building resembles the shape of the Eiffel Tower, with three archways that form a sort of a curved triangular type of shape. Architects designed the structure to resemble a three-pointed Revolutionary War-era military hat, said Tim Senecal, general supervisor with Commodore and Walsh.

He said the smooth curve of the building was outlined on the site using robot and GPS technology. Architectural accents include decorative brick work and six “fins.” These fins are extensions of the exterior walls that gracefully flare out some 25 feet from the ground. An onlooker may guess that they reduce glare or make the building more windproof. But don’t be fooled, the architect’s included the fins to add a certain je ne sais quoi quality to the imposing structure, contractors explained.

There are two nine-story unitized curtain walls made exclusively from glass, that give off a graceful bluish hue, and are joined by thin steel. One side has yet to be completed, and both will eventually be framed by LED lights.

“It’s going to look awesome at night,” said Project Engineer Mark Johnson, who works for the state in the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM).

The foundation and outdoor retaining wall are made up of Goshen stone, which was installed a week ago.

“That was a big thing with the designers, is they wanted Goshen stone, which is very desirable elsewhere in the country. It has kind of like a rusty, high iron feature in the stone itself,” said Johnson.

The eye-catching new home for veterans “will basically erase” the current waitlist, since the new building will hold up to 234 veterans, said Executive Director Michael Lazo, who is also a veteran who went to Iraq in 2004. There are 128 veterans in the current residence, and 100 on the waitlist, who on average wait a year to be admitted.

When completed, the former building will be leveled and turned into a parking lot. And even after the new residence opens next year, improvements will continue when picnic spaces, benches, a pavilion, and a memorial garden are added.

Interior look

What Simpson can’t watch from the front porch is the progress happening inside the new building, but the Gazette’s tour included a look at the ongoing work that, at the present moment, is just the shape of what is yet to be.

The first floor will be an administrative area, which at the moment is all concrete and exposed steel supports. There is a defined shape of a future “great room” that will be next to a barbershop and a chapel.

The chapel, which will have glass walls and will be north-facing, overlooks the city of Holyoke with a clear view of the slopes of Mount Tom. The water tower in South Hadley is also clearly visible.

Flooring on the first floor, which has yet to be laid and is still a smooth but dusty concrete subflooring, will be terrazzo, which resembles a seamless marble floor, said Schuster. Residential floors will have luxury tile that looks like wood.

Floors two through eight will be residential, with the penthouse on the ninth floor being a mechanical hub, where the organs of the building will be housed.

Each floor will be separated by “neighborhoods” with a nurse who will be in charge of 12 resident rooms, and have stations throughout the building.

There will be a community den and library on each floor.

Currently, residents use a more of a “dorm” style for their restrooms, with a communal bathroom on each floor. But just in time to receive a greater flux of female veterans, private restrooms for each resident are included in the new design.

Unlike most long-term care facilities that house a majority of women, said Lazo, currently, 97% of residents are male in the Veterans Home.

But that is subject to change, he added. “As we get into [veterans who served in] the war on terror, Desert Storm, Persian Gulf, we’ll start seeing a lot more females,” said Lazo.

Each shower is “European style,” as there is no enclosure but an open space, without steps or tripping hazards. Gradually, some rooms are coming together, with bathroom tile work, sheetrock, and floor plans coming to life, although they still remain bare and empty of furniture.

In the future, residents will open the door to a 55-inch TV, built-in storage and shelving units, as well as a desk and chair.

Every bedroom has its own square window that fills the white painted rooms with light. All resident windows have been installed so far.

Outside each room will be a pale wooden mail slot.

Propane gas will continued to be used this winter until the building has been officially sealed from the elements this coming March, said Schuster.

But a 144-well geothermal system has already been installed to heat and cool the building and will be used after construction.

The main kitchen will be in the basement, but food will be distributed to each of the residential floors where there are smaller dining and kitchen facilities. Right now, the future kitchens are full of plastic-wrapped stainless steel commercial kitchen equipment.

‘New normal’

Lazo said the new facility represents a “new normal” after the pandemic, as mask mandates and other precautions are already no longer the norm in the current residence.

The old facility still holds some scarred feelings among residents who were there during the pandemic when the former Holyoke Soldiers’ Home made national headlines after 76 veterans died in 2020.

“The building needed more attention than it was getting, and it’s unfortunate that it took that kind of issue to bring it back up to the governor’s attention,” Lazo said. “There was some conversations about adding another wing, just the funding was never there or it wasn’t prioritized.”

With more than 200 residents being housed at the time, many of them did not have the required 150 square feet of space to themselves, which made social distancing impossible.

“They were doing the best they could to take care of as many veterans as they could,” said Lazo, adding that the number of residents had to be nearly halved following the deaths during the pandemic.

After the attention the Soldiers’ Home received, $482.6 million has been invested into the newly named Veterans Home in Holyoke. Funding came from a mix of $263.5 million in federal Veterans Administration, with remaining funding coming from a state bond bill.

Construction officially began in 2023.

“This is where they spend their last few years, at least,” said Lazo. “We need to give them an appropriate place to live out those last few years.”

Lazo said Gov. Maura Healey has been supportive, and he praised her work in multiplying state funding for statewide veterans services.

But the old building has not been soured for everyone. Simpson, despite his excitement about the new building, is sad to see the old one go, as generations of his family who served in the military lived and died in the building.

“This is gonna be a parking lot. It’s gonna be torn down. I bet that’ll be hard to watch, but it’s gonna be so nice over there,” he said.