CARIBOU – Northern Maine veterans no longer will have to drive five hours to southern Maine to bury their comrades in arms, thanks to a nearly $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The $2,859,310 grant will fund the development of a more than 20-acre cemetery on the Lombard Road in Caribou where 4,500 veterans and their next of kin can be buried. The site is 2.8 miles from the Caribou business district, toward Washburn.

Construction of the Northern Maine Veterans Commemorative Cemetery is expected to start in late April or early May. Substantial completion is scheduled for Dec. 1. The only other veterans cemetery in Maine is in Augusta. Another is planned for southern Maine in the next couple of years.

“We are finally seeing the culmination of four years of work,” Maurice Lizotte of Caribou, a veterans advocate, said Tuesday. “It is coming to fruition.

“We are already planning next year’s grand opening of the cemetery,” said Lizotte, who will be the facility’s administrator. “Many people have been working for this for a long time.”

“This grant is wonderful news,” U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins wrote recently in a joint statement. “A veterans cemetery in northern Maine is an appropriate and fitting tribute to the region’s many men and women who have served their country in the military.”

The federal money will fund the construction of the project. Day-to-day operations will be funded by the Maine Department of Veterans Services, Lizotte said.

The idea for the Northern Maine Veterans Commemorative Cemetery was conceived sometime in 1998. A governor’s committee then studied the feasibility of the project.

The Northern Maine Veterans Commemorative Cemetery Corp. was established in January 1999. The nonprofit corporation includes members of the American Legion, AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Military Order of the Purple Heart, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Vietnam Veterans of America, the Maine Department of Defense and Veterans Services, and the Maine Funeral Directors Association.

The project was substantially advanced when John and Joyce Noble donated 33 acres of their family homestead to the project.

A preliminary plan was developed and approved by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs State Cemetery Grants Program.

Mohr and Seredin, landscape architects of Portland, designed the facility. The apparent low bidder on the construction, according to Dave Richmond, project officer for Maine Veterans Cemetery System, is Soderberg Construction of Caribou.

Richmond said federal approval for the project came through Monday.

Included in the project will be a 1,500-square-foot administration building, which will include a reception area, an office for the supervisor, and an inclement weather committal room. The basement of the building will be the maintenance building for the cemetery. Another structure, which will be a roofed shelter for regular committal services, also will be constructed on the site.

Lizotte said he hopes to move into the buildings at the cemetery in December. He said the burial plot areas will be done in phases. The first phase of construction will create some 1,000 plots.

Of the 33 acres donated, 28 acres will be developed as part of the project. Lizotte said the original plan was to purchase land for the project. The Noble donation moved the plan quickly up the ladder in veterans services.

Lizotte said local fund raising in Aroostook County also moved the project along.

Central and northern Aroostook companies have donated workers and machinery to remove scrub trees and provide minor landscaping. Some $23,000 raised in The County will go toward unfunded costs, such as benches, pavers, ground beautification, a burial kiosk and other amenities, including shrubs, bushes and trees.

“A lot of small amounts of money has been given to this project over the last four years,” Lizotte said. “Many costs are not covered by the federal grant.”

Plans call for a contemporary memorial design with grave markers that are flush to the ground. The U.S. flag also will be prominently displayed in a memorial circle of honor.

The state, which will hold title to the cemetery, will open and close all burial plots, and furnish perpetual care at no cost to individual veterans. All graves will be of equal size.

Burial in the cemetery will be open to all honorably discharged veterans and spouses.

“This has been a long time in coming for veterans of northern Maine and their families,” Richmond said Tuesday. “The nearest state veterans cemetery to them was over five hours away in Augusta.

“Many northern Maine veterans have been working on the project for several years,” he said.