(Seguin) — Guadalupe County’s vision for its future veterans outreach center is nearing the end of phase one. An actual visual or schematic design of what that building would look like was presented recently to members of the Guadalupe County Commissioners Court. The design was presented by Lyndsay Thorn, of ThornGraves Architects.
Guadalupe County Judge Kyle Kutscher says for years, the county has had a real dream to bring such a project to life. He says once initiated, the project will be a complete renovation of the old Head Start and old county hospital building located at 205 Weinert St.
“The county has been discussing for years what could be done with that property and that building. In Guadalupe County and in our adjoining counties, we have about 65 to 70,000 veterans that live in this area that need services from multiple agencies and we thought what better idea for the use of that whole building than to have multiple agencies and our veterans service office of the county housed in that single building so it’s a benefit to those veterans,” said Kutscher.
Kutscher says the design pays close attention to those details that will enhance the lives of veterans and their families. He says this future building would eliminate or at least cut down on the amount of travel that local veterans normally have to endure while seeking out various resources and services.
“The design of the facility and the planned renovations for the building were gone through in a very deliberate and intricate way, thinking about every detail and how veterans would interact with the building — not only functional use of the space and the way the offices and meeting rooms and kitchen and evaluation rooms are laid out and planned out and thought but the Pentagon laid into the brick at the entrance of the building, the signage, the service flags, ceremonial spaces, the outdoor park for veterans in the back of the property, the dog park for service animals — I mean we really have gone through and tried to make this a space for veterans to not only receive treatments and resources but a place that veterans would want to gather for a longtime in our county,” said Kutscher.
County officials say they hope the future building not only instills pride but provides a homelike environment for the veterans and their families.
Kutscher says with the schematic design in hand, it now allows the county to move forward with the next phase of making this project happen and that’s getting the funds to secure the renovation.
“So now that we are done with the preliminary design of the building would be to go out to the neighboring counties — Comal, Hays, Caldwell, Gonzales and Wilson County and try to get letters of support being that they would have veterans in those counties that may use this facility — also get our state leaders and leaders in Washington to support the project so we can try to get some grant funding but then talk about hard construction costs and timelines for construction and possibly interlocal agreements from the VA and other agencies that may want to house in that facility. There’s a lot of parts and pieces to work on but I think it’s going to come together,” said Kutscher.
County officials say recruiting resource partnerships and securing the finances for the project will begin immediately.
Again, they stress that the intent of the veterans outreach center will not only be to serve county residents but veterans living throughout this region.