Speakers at groundbreaking line up to praise new veterans, military campus

FRANKLIN — A formal project dedication might attract 300 spectators, but it is rare for that many people to show up for a groundbreaking ceremony. Yet that is just what happened on Wednesday when leaders broke ground for a new EastersealsNH facility “by veterans, for veterans” at Webster Place.

The program included more than a dozen speakers — many of them veterans — praising the plans for a military and veterans’ campus on the 15-acre property. It will serve as a first-of-its-kind center for veterans, members of the military and their families.

Plans call for the conversion of existing buildings on the grounds to create 30 units of affordable housing for veterans. New construction will connect two of the buildings and provide an elevator to make them accessible to people with disabilities.

Those facilities are projected to be completed in a little more than a year. EastersealsNH and its Campus Taskforce will be working to raise additional money for a retreat center with 21 rooms.

Yet another phase of construction will create a therapeutic recreational facility with indoor riding, a ropes course and rock climbing, with a military-themed playground for veterans’ children, an outdoor performance stage and possibly a swimming pool.

Planning for the military and veterans’ campus involved visiting facilities around New England and talking with veterans to find out both needs and wants. The goal is to create a completely new type of facility that makes New Hampshire a destination for veterans that is the envy of — and model for — other states.

Speakers at the groundbreaking singled out Phil Taub, president of Swim With A Mission, along with Maureen Beauregard, president and chief executive officer of EastersealsNH, and Gov. Chris Sununu for their foresight in bringing the project this far.

Taub, whose nonprofit foundation has raised money for the Easterseals Veterans Count program, originally conceived of creating something more comprehensive for the state’s veteran population.

“If you go to Gov. Sununu with an idea, you’ve got about one minute I think before he’s gonna shut you down,” Taub said. Before approaching the governor, Taub and his wife, Julie, consulted with caregivers around the state to find out what the most pressing need is.

“The answer kept coming back as affordable housing,” he said. “And this is a true story: When I talked to Gov. Sununu about it, I was only 30 seconds in before he said, ‘Yes. We’re going to do this.’”

In Sununu’s account of how the project came about, he said Taub and Beauregard approached him about obtaining $8 million in state support.

“You might be able to do something,” Sununu said. “We’ll do this part over here and we’ll handle homeless veterans and maybe some mental health services, and then we kind of pushed everyone to think a little bigger, and we got bigger, and then it got bigger again — $14 million. I said, ‘Screw it. Here’s $23 million.’ ... I really do believe that, when you do something like this, you take it on, you got to think big.”

The $23 million Sununu referenced had become available through the federal American Rescue Plan Act. Executive Councilor Joe Kenney, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps. and represents District 1, recounted how that body responded when presented with the request.

“I’ll have to say, as an executive councilor, in working with Gov. Chris Sununu, he always sees the glass half full. The council always sees it half empty. ... So when this particular contract came up for $23 million, we had a lot of questions to ask, like 'What is it? What’s it gonna look like?' We haven’t even seen the place and we’re voting on $23 million! ... But I will say, when I met Maureen Beauregard and I found out her brother was a Marine ... I said, ‘We’re on our way. We’re gonna get something done.’”

Franklin Mayor Jo Brown, a 22-year veteran herself, recounted the history of the property off Route 3 that once belonged to Daniel Webster’s family. The buildings to be renovated had served as an orphanage, then as home to the Sisters of Holy Cross. Restaurateur Alex Ray later established a rehabilitation center on the property. Now, Brown said, “we’re dealing with members not only of the Greatest Generation from a couple of wars back, but these people are still part of a great generation because they care about America, they care about their fellow people, they care about democracy and the rights and truths of being an American.”

Brown said Sununu had been a guest speaker at a mayor’s roundtable about a year and a half ago and he talked about “some plans he was thinking about” and what might be available.

“I said, ‘Have you ever thought about Webster Place?’ And I’ll never forget, he looked at me, he kind of smiled, and said, ‘Jo, you’re going to have to wait a couple weeks on that.’ And a couple weeks later, he announced this whole project.”

Rob Dapple, executive director and chief executive officer of NH Housing, said federal programs such as the low-income housing tax credit and tax-exempt bonds will play a big part in making the project work.

“We wouldn’t be able to make great projects like this happen without the tools like this from the Fed,” he said, “so I encourage you to just keep that in mind when housing programs are on the table down in Washington, D.C., as they actually are right now.”

As a former infantryman in the U.S. Army, Dapple noted the difference between the poor reception veterans returning from Vietnam had received and the respect today’s veterans are shown today.

“I would say another point of pride is the work that we’ve done, and many of you here ... to reduce veterans’ homelessness significantly — to actually want to address how to hate war and love the warrior,” he continued. “But I don’t want to just live in a state with no homeless veterans. I want to live in a state with no homeless people.”

“It’s great that we’re putting shovels in the ground,” Sununu said in making a pitch for additional donations. “There’s a lot more work to do, and it’s all about getting a great result. ... If you’ve given a $10,000 check, that’s wonderful; give another $20,000. If you’ve given $50, give $100; if $100, give half a million; and if you think you’re doing a great job because you gave a million, I know you could give two — if you can write one seven-digit check, you can probably write another — and that’s what this is going to need.”

He added, “You got to keep that sustainable, not or two years, not for five years: for 100 years.”