Page 48 - BusinessWest December 8, 2025

MONTHLY FEATURE
www.HealthCareNews.com
View to the
Future
Veterans’ Home Takes
Shape in Holyoke
BY GEORGE O’BRIEN
[email protected]
ing its first residents for another nine months or so,
The new Veterans’ Home at Holyoke won’t be welcom-
but the gleaming, $500 million structure on a hill
overlooking the Paper City has already captured the
imagination of the region.
Highly visible to motorists on I-91 and to residents of Holy-
oke as well, the nine-story, Y-shaped building — a design one of
those on the construction team said was inspired by the tricorn
hats worn by Revolutionary War soldiers — serves as both a
reminder of the tragedy that occurred during the early days of
COVID at the structure it will replace, as well as a symbol of the
state’s commitment to modernize the facility in the wake of that
calamity.
Michael Lazo, executive director of the home, was a mem-
ber of the National Guard unit that was dispatched to what was
then called the Soldiers’ Home in late March 2020 amid a deep-
ening crisis that would eventually take the lives of 76 residents
in one of the nation’s worst COVID-19 outbreaks in a long-term
care facility.
“I remember first walking in and not knowing what the
The new Veterans’ Home at Holyoke is slated to
welcome its first residents next September. Inset:
an architect’s rendering of the new facility shows its
compelling design and ornate gardens.
48
DECEMBER 8, 2025
heck we were walking into,”
he recalled, noting that he
arrived at the site on March
30, three days after the facil-
ity’s leadership made the fate-
ful decision to combine two
locked dementia units into a
single undersized unit, pre-
cipitating the rapid spread of COVID. “Everything looked com-
pletely normal; you wouldn’t think anything was going on.”
Lazo would later be offered a full-time COO position at the
home and eventually would be named interim director by the
board of trustees and then the state. Today, he oversees all
operations at the home while also preparing for the opening of
the new facility, which will be called the Veterans’ Home, rather
than the Soldiers’ Home, in deference to the veterans who
served in other branches of the military.
“Especially the Marines — they’ve never liked Soldiers’
Home,” he joked, adding that he’s also finding time these days
to offer tours of the building in progress — to staff, a few elected
officials (more of those are scheduled to go through in the days
and weeks to come), and a few media members.
BusinessWest was afforded such a tour late last month. As
noted, the facility is several months from welcoming its first
“I remember first
walking in and
not knowing what
the heck we were
walking into.”
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