It's official.

A skilled nursing facility for veterans is ready to open in Bowling Green.

It's been decades in the making.

And officials cut the ribbon yesterday to celebrate our.

Laura Rogers has more from Warren County.

Through through the night.

Today is a dream come true.

It's a dream that has taken almost 30 years, maybe a little over 30 years to come to fruition.

That dream is the official opening of the Robert E Spiller Bowling Green Veterans Center.

It's a story of hope, faith, hard work, perseverance for a whole lot of obstacles.

State Representative Michael Meredith of Oakland has championed this project for many years, but the origins of it date back to the 1990s, when Colonel Robert E Spiller began advocating for a veterans nursing home in Bowling Green.

We have a lot of veterans in Warren County and, of course, surrounding counties.

It's a testament to what can be achieved when all levels of government, federal, state and local work with community partners and set partizanship aside for the greater good.

That includes navigating a budget shortfall of $16.63 million.

Meredith's House Bill two and 2023, signed by Governor Andy Beshear, closed that funding gap.

The veterans deserve the very best in this community, and I'm glad that after a lot of work, we delivered.

This is awesome.

If you had to describe it as a Star Trek spaceship, this would be the new enterprise.

The $53 million facility has 60 private suites and 152 employees.

I have some amazing people, team members.

We're going to live out that mission, which is to care for our veterans and who deserves it more than our veterans.

The center's first hire was Administrator Jason Gum, who's operated Long-Term Care Facilities for 30 years.

We're using ratios like our ratio would be 6 to 1 patients in the private sector.

You might see ten or 12 to 1.

So we're probably going to have more people, more staff to be able to provide the quality service that we're looking for.

It is beautiful inside.

There's going to be so much dignity living here, all everything modern that you would want in a facility to make sure it can provide for everyone's medical needs.

Those needs include rehabilitation and physical therapy, but also recreation and social engagement.

His Morton community is family is family.

We asked the commissioner about the importance of long term care for the military community.

Our veterans serve, you know, three years, 30 years.

The years of combat, peacekeeping mission and training really takes a toll on the body.

And many of them come back and serve in their community and live full lives.

But then there's a point in life where mama, sisters, friends can't take care of Grandpa Amy.

They're excited that if the time comes when they need this level of service, that their loved ones are going to be close by, and that's what we should be delivering.

The center will accept private pay, Medicare and Medicaid, and once 20 veterans are admitted, they can become VA certified.

This is a promise made and a promise kept to the veterans of south central Kentucky.

The Robert E Spiller Veterans Center will begin admitting its first residents in the next couple of weeks.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Laura Rogers.

Along with this one, Kentucky now has five skilled nursing facilities for veterans.

The others are located in Hanson, hazard, Radcliffe, and Wilmore.