FULTON, Mo. (AP) - The state of Missouri is issuing nearly $100 million in bonds as the final funding piece for construction of a new state mental hospital campus dating to before the Civil War.
The state's Office of Administration said in a statement Tuesday that the $97.2 million in bonds will go toward the $211 million price tag of the maximum-security Fulton State Hospital being built. Construction began in 2015 and is to be completed in 2018.
The Missouri Development Finance Board on Tuesday signed off on the bonds sale.
Missouri lawmakers approved of the construction project in 2014.
The state said the Fulton State Hospital was built in 1851 and is the oldest state psychiatric hospital west of the Mississippi River.