Secretary Shinseki Announces $13 Million Gravesite Expansion

WASHINGTON – Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced today that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has awarded a nearly $13 million construction contract for gravesite expansion at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis.

“Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery is one of our oldest and most treasured national shrines,” said Secretary Shinseki. “Through this development project, we will be able to continue serving Veterans of Missouri and Illinois and their families.”

The contract was awarded to U.S. Builders Group, a service-disabled Veteran-owned small business from Detroit, in the amount of $12,997,000.  The project was designed by the St. Louis-based URS Group, Inc., and construction is scheduled for completion in early 2012. 

The expansion will develop about 13 acres and include approximately 10,500 pre-placed crypts and 5,500 columbarium niches for cremation remains. The contract also includes a new committal service shelter, a memorial wall and plaza, access roads, irrigation system, landscaping, fencing and utilities.  This project will provide nearly five additional years of casket burial capacity.

Established in 1862 along the bluffs of the Mississippi River a few miles south of downtown St. Louis, Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery consists of 331 acres and is the final resting place of more than 180,000 Americans. 

The new construction is part of a five-phase plan to expand the cemetery; consolidate the outpatient functions of St. Louis VA Medical Center (Jefferson Barracks Division) to a single location; and relocate VA’s National Cemetery Administration National Training Center.  

Veterans with a discharge issued under conditions other than dishonorable, their spouses and eligible dependent children can be buried in a VA national cemetery.  Also eligible are military personnel who die on active duty, their spouses and eligible dependents.  Other burial benefits available for eligible Veterans, regardless of whether they are buried in a national cemetery or a private cemetery, include a burial flag, a Presidential Memorial Certificate and a service headstone or marker.  Families may also order a memorial headstone or marker when remains are not available for interment. All services are free of charge to the Veteran and the family.

In the midst of the largest expansion since the Civil War, VA operates 131 national cemeteries in 39 states and Puerto Rico and 33 soldiers’ lots and monument sites.  More than 3.5 million Americans, including Veterans of every war and conflict, are buried in VA’s national cemeteries on more than 19,000 acres of land.

Information on VA burial benefits can be obtained from national cemetery offices, from the Internet at www.cem.va.gov or by calling VA regional offices toll-free at 800-827-1000.  To make burial arrangements at the time of need at any VA national cemetery, call the national cemetery scheduling office at 800-535-1117.   For information on Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, contact the cemetery staff at 314-845-8320.