$10m could be price tag for new justice center

December 8, 2005

HUNTSVILLE — While it’s still a work in progress, a new Scott County jail and justice center complex could cost upwards of $10 million, an architect for SouthBuild told county commissioners Monday night.

The commissioners took a 30-minute break from their regular monthly work session to sit down with planners from the Memphis-based firm to see what progress was being made on designing the new facility.

It came at the end of a planned four-day designing blitz by the architectural firm to get input from the Sheriff, County Mayor, commissioners and judicial officials. By 11 a.m. today (Thursday), architect Jim Langford and his staff are expected to present their findings of what the building will consist of, preliminary drawings of what it will look like, and what it’s likely to cost the taxpayers to build.

As of Monday night, the preliminary findings reveal a 130-bed jail and adjoining Sheriff’s office, as well as an attached “compromise” justice center complex containing one large and one small courtroom, plus a multipurpose room which could be subdivided into two small courtrooms, Langford said. Also, the jail-justice center complex as it now looks would contain the offices of the district attorney general. All with a ballpark estimate of around $10 million.

The new facility, whatever design is eventually adopted by county commission, will be constructed on a county-owned 30-acre tract adjacent to the road department compound on Scott High Drive in Huntsville.

The time-table the architect is working on calls for the project to go to bid in May of 2006 and be constructed and occupied in 2007.

As the project is being designed with input from the various county officials, the architect is doing preliminary drawings and developing options for the commission’s consideration, ranging from just a jail and sheriff’s office to a full-blown jail-justice center complex.

Preliminary sketches of the developing design which were shown to commissioner Monday night contain a 30,000 square foot jail and sheriff’s office complex and a 16,000 square foot judicial section. The jail facility itself is being designed in such a way as to make future expansion possible, the commissioners were told.

Cost estimates provided Monday night included $7 million for the jail and sheriff’s office, $2.5 million for the judicial complex and around $500,000 for the DA’s offices. Calling those figures “ballpark estimates,” Langford said that they would be “refined” by the conclusion of the planning session at 11 a.m. Thursday.

Several specifics of the planned facility were discussed Monday night, including the security features, staffing requirements, types of jail cells, etc., and the potential for including two rather expensive options available: geothermal heating system and “video visitation.”

Geothermal, or taking heat from the ground, would cost anywhere from $200,000 to $250,000 for the facility, Langford told the commissioners, but would likely pay for itself over a seven-year period due to reduced energy costs.

Video visitation, which is in effect a video telephone system designed for security purposes, would cost anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000 to install, but would also likely pay for itself within a few years through costs savings in staffing, Langford said.

As currently designed, the new jail facility would include approximately 40 beds for female inmates, but a portion of those cells could be easily changed over to male inmate cells should the need arise, Langford pointed out.

The planning session, which is being held at the Scott County Office Building, was to have continued all day on Tuesday and Wednesday and wrapped up in the first half of the day on Thursday.

newsroom@ihoneida.com

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