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Quincy veterans home redo to take 4-5 years, price could top $265 million

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Illinois

The Rauner administration delivered a preliminary cost estimate to members of a special task force on Friday revealing the prolonged effort to repair the aging Quincy Veterans Home could reach a price tag of $265 million. […]

The new report, officially titled the Illinois Veterans’ Homes Capital Needs Assessment, strongly recommends construction on a new residential home on the Quincy campus, complete with a new water distribution plumbing loop ($220M-$250M), a newly installed water plumbing loop to completely replace outdated pipes ($13.4M), development of an alternative water source ($4.6M-$5.5M), and the purchase and renovation of an off-site facility ($5M-$6M).

The estimated time frame to complete construction on a new facility is four to five years. […]

More than 350 veterans or their spouses still live at the facility. Most of them live in buildings that were constructed at least half a century ago. Two independent living structures on campus are 109 years old.

Needless to say, that’s an astonishing amount of money. We could buy each of those folks a $750,000 condo for that price.

It’s also well more than twice the cost of the still unfinished state veterans home in Chicago. As you may remember, Gov. Rauner slashed $4 million from that Chicago veterans facility in 2016, calling it “wasteful spending.” But now he wants to spend $265+ million on a new Quincy facility?

Must be an election year.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 10:55 am

Comments

Back of napkin: $265,000,000 / $1000! per foot gives 265,000 square feet / 350 people gives each person a 757 square foot apartment that would essentially be gold plated. The firm that submitted that proposal is???

Comment by en absentia Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:00 am
Not a problem…pension reform cash.

Comment by Anon Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:06 am
That is a ridiculous price tag. No wonder this guy can’t submit a budget.

Comment by BlueDogDem Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:09 am
The facility will not cost that much. The unicorn barn is what will bring the price up. They just make things up, and expect everyone to believe the nonsense.

Comment by Retired Educator Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:12 am
“The estimated time frame to complete construction on a new facility is four to five years.”
And in the meantime…. what??? How many more people, residents and staff alike, need to get sick or die because Rauner believes in hoarding a pound to save a penny?

I’ll bet he has his eyes on some of this money, too- https://tinyurl.com/yclluse5 . And when he goes to ask for a bite of that $500 mil, how will he reconcile/explain to the Feds how he let that 2016 project deteriorate because it was “wasteful spending”, and then turn around and do a major ask for a goodly portion of another $250 mil to build another site?

November cannot come soon enough.

Comment by Anon221 Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:14 am
Is the “purchase and renovation of an off-site facility ($5M-$6M)” to house veterans while the construction takes place?

Comment by Bigtwich Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:14 am
The numbers are staggering. What else is padded into that proposal?

My local plumber could do the job with half the money :’)

Comment by plutocrat03 Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:15 am
This from the guy who’s holding back an appropriated bump that would increase home health care workers hourly wage to $13.48.

–We could buy each of those folks a $750,000 condo for that price.–

I can smell the meat-a-cookin’.

Obviously, options originating on Planet Earth need to be explored, including existing facilities elsewhere and group homes.

Rauner is never going to take this job seriously. It’s some silly retiree game for him.

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:19 am
Wouldn’t it make more sense to build a new facility closer to a VA hospital? The Illinois VA hospitals are located in Danville, Marion, and near Chicago.

Comment by A Jack Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:21 am
If the Rauner folks remain in charge, this is probably a low number. Their track record of keeping track of finances and property are not exactly inspiring…

http://auditor.illinois.gov/Audit-Reports/Compliance-Agency-List/Governor/FY17-Governor-Comp-Digest.pdf

http://auditor.illinois.gov/Audit-Reports/Performance-Special-Multi/Performance-Audits/2018_Releases/18-Medicaid-MCOs-Perf-Digest.pdf

Comment by Pot calling kettle Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:26 am
For comparison, in Chicago, Belmont Village is being built where Children’s Memorial Hospital used to be. The cost will be $350 million, but will include 760 units, of that amount 160 assisted living units, 540 regular apartments and 60 condos. It will also include 160,000 of retail space to rent. The project will be done in two years. And I’m guessing land at Fullerton, Halsted and Lincoln is much more expensive than land already owned by the state at Quincy. So the Rainer Administration price for this home is way out of wack.

Comment by Da Big Bad Wolf Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:33 am
The prevailing wage in Quincy must be staggering.

Comment by Dance Band on the Titanic Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:35 am
$265 million could be more than just construction. I assume that there will be professional services for architects and engineers, plus costs for furniture, fixtures, and other equipment.

Plus, don’t forget the 30% premium that will be required because of prevailing wage. $750,000 condos aren’t required to pay the union wage.

Comment by Anon Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:36 am
You’d think a fiscal conservative governor would be outraged that the cost and the amount of time within that cost would be a point of contention and an obvious point to do things right in a more fiscally sound solution and done in a more timely manner.

But, Bruce Rauner…

Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:37 am
I tried to google this report but came up empty. I gave this a few moments to let the Rauner administration have time to correct this news release. Since they haven’t, WOW. These guys are clueless.

Comment by BlueDogDem Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:38 am
===prevailing wage===

Oh.

It’s so expensive because of prevailing wage?

Ok. Without prevailing wage, what’s the new number?

It has to be so large you could show a huge “savings”

Also, whatever you think should be reduced, 5%, 10%…

You cut your own income by that, you can send that percentage to me.

Thanks.

Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:41 am
Just give them the Thompson Center.

Comment by Leigh John-Ella Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:43 am
Because of the very high cost, the only solution will be Rauner-owned nursing homes.

Comment by very old soil Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:44 am
I kinda have an idea where they pulled this number out of…and it wasn’t out of thin air.

Comment by BlueDogDem Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 11:44 am
What the Illinois government needs to do is 1. Move the current veterans to other Illinois veteran’s homes for now. The other veteran’s homes are only a third to a half utilized friends who work there tell me. 2. Build the Chicago veteran’s home. The Chicago metropolitan area is 10 million people, the whole state of Illinois is under 13 million people. Why is there no veteran’s home in the area? 3. Make the other senior building down the street the new Quincy veteran’s home if it is newer and in better shape. Not everyone at the old Quincy home is from the Quincy area, so it could be smaller. 4. Sell the land from the former Quincy veteran’s home. Bottom line one extra veteran’s home. A new home near where most people live, and less money spent and more money coming in.

Comment by Da Big Bad Wolf Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 12:01 pm
$265 million really? How in any way did they come up with that number? I’m guessing if my 8th grade math teacher saw that as my answer she’d have said show your work.
But hey they had a task force meeting and decided this. Who is on that task force?

Comment by DuPage Bard Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 12:25 pm
DuPage Bard,
This is the recommendation the Rauner administration came up with and gave to the task force.

Classic Rauner.

If the task force scales back the plan, he tells veterans: “I tried to do more for you but … (insert Madigan).”

If the task force goes along, Rauner has political cover for his immensely ridiculously expensive ideas. Faced with any criticism he throws on the Carhartt, heads to Quincy and says:”Well, golly, we assembled a bipartisan team and this is what they said was best.”

Comment by Leigh John-Ella Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 12:38 pm
In the meantime, how many more veterans will Rauner let die at Quincy?

Comment by Precinct Captain Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 12:56 pm
Just another example of government planning at work. This is a travesty!

Comment by NeverPoliticallyCorrect Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 12:57 pm
Fiscal conservatism at its best.

Comment by walker Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 1:21 pm
Even in Chicago, the normal markup is only 10% for facilitating things.

So how much is it without the favored contractors markup?

Comment by RNUG Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 2:18 pm
The Gov stops in to see he cares, hasn’t done anything since it began and submits a phony cost for building a facility. Call me skeptical but I don’t believe he cares not does the GA.

Note to self, don’t go to a Illinois Vet home if that time comes.

Comment by FormerParatrooper Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 4:16 pm
Jeez, at $265 Million you’d think they were renovating a Barney’s Furniture store.

http://www.sj-r.com/news/20170404/manar-questions-states-24m-lease-of-former-springfield-furniture-warehouse

Comment by SAP Tuesday, Apr 3, 18 @ 5:08 pm
If they spend the money to fix the water problems, it can be used for many years for future veterans. So it does not come down to $750,000 per veteran. The place is outdated and needs to be fixed.

Comment by Wife of Veteran at Quincy Wednesday, Apr 4, 18 @ 7:03 pm