Jacksonville Naval Hospital $60M upgrade

Jacksonville Naval Hospital $60M upgrade to help families stay closer to home

Posted: September 8, 2011
By Jeff Brumley
By the time Mayor Alvin Brown took the podium Wednesday morning, anyone with a role in the mostly completed expansion and renovation of Jacksonville Naval Hospital had been praised and thanked.

That included military and civilian engineers, architects, previous commanding officers, U.S. Rep. Ander Crenshaw and even Brown himself. But the mayor wanted someone else to get some kudos for the five-year, $60 million project:

"Let's give God a hand for blessing Jacksonville with the best military personnel," Brown said before an audience of Navy brass and civic and government officials gathered for the ribbon cutting on the upgraded facility.

From there, Brown launched into one of his standard refrains: his commitment to making the city the most military-friendly community in the nation. The changes to the hospital, including the addition of 62,000 square feet of space, are a step in that direction, he said.

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