Columbia, S.C. ? A new national cemetery will be located at Fort Jackson, a sprawling Army base just east of downtown, officials said Friday.

The new 600-acre cemetery would accommodate up to 25,000 graves and become the state’s third federally run veterans cemetery, said William Tuerk, the Veterans Affairs’ undersecretary for memorial affairs.

“We intend to move quickly … so that a convenient, close-to-home burial option can be provided to central South Carolinians of my father’s generation,” Tuerk said at a Veterans Day parade in Columbia.

The VA plans to seek $20 million to build the new cemetery in the fiscal year that begins in October 2007, and burials could begin in 2008, officials have said.

There has been a need for more cemetery space as more of the nation’s aging veterans die.

The National Cemetery Administration, which maintains more than 120 national cemeteries in 39 states and Puerto Rico, reported this spring that it had room for about 4 million gravesites, including developed and undeveloped space. There are roughly 9.5 million veterans who are older than 65.