The project to create Georgia's largest veterans cemetery in Augusta has been awarded more than $13.6 million in federal funding.
The cemetery is planned for 3780 Byrd Road, on state-owned property beside the Gracewood campus of East Central Georgia Regional Hospital.
"Funding for the long-awaited veterans cemetery in Augusta has now been officially awarded to the State of Georgia," U.S. Rep. Rick Allen recently said. "To our veterans and their families in the CSRA and surrounding communities, the tireless work that brought us to this point is for you."
Site plans for the cemetery show the layout for the first 4,100 burials in conventional graves, in-ground
cremated remains, preplaced crypts, memorial-wall plaques and a columbarium, an above-ground structure where cremains are interred.
The cemetery's first phase will cover about 50 acres of its total 200 acres.
The $13,610,908 grant from the Department of Veterans Affairs' National Cemetery Administration came through an approved House appropriations bill.
Some architectural enhancements to the cemetery will require private funding, including a bell tower and landscape features. Donors can help pay for these personalized tributes online at csraveteranscemetery.org to the nonprofit CSRA Veterans Cemetery Fund.
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Augusta veterans cemetery lands $13.6M grant, project moves ahead
