Where to build a new jail?
Members of the DeKalb County Jail Committee and the County Mayor met Tuesday night with Bob Bass, former Deputy Director of the Tennessee Corrections Institute, who now serves as a county correction partnership consultant.
During the meeting, Bass said he and Committee Chairman Larry Green and County Mayor Matt Adcock toured sites around town Tuesday that might be possible locations for a new jail.
Of the three properties he saw, Bass said the Peggy Hayes property, an undeveloped green site, located near Walmart would be the best choice. Others he looked at were sites on Bright Hill Road owned by Joe Rice and the Steve Colvert family property on Smith Road.
“One site jumped out at me but let me do a disclaimer here. The Tennessee Corrections Institute nor any agency in the state of Tennessee to my knowledge can tell a county commission where they are going to put a jail. You can use my expertise, and I can give you, my opinion. I will always pose questions about if (property) is good for the project but I will not tell you (location) where you are going to put the jail,” said Bass. “In this case the Hayes property checked all the boxes. The entire piece of property I think would be a good choice for the county in that it’s big enough for a one-story facility. It would accommodate parking, an exercise area, expansion and has availability of water, sewer and three phase electricity etc. It checks all the boxes without a negative spot anywhere,” said Bass.
When asked by members of the committee, County Mayor Adcock said the county once had the Hayes property (38 acres) appraised at $1,485,000. “Preliminarily we discussed about eight months to a year ago offering her (Hayes) $2 million for all of it (38 acres) and she rejected that offer,” he said.
A few members of the committee expressed concerns about putting a jail on the Hayes property with it being near a residential neighborhood.
Asked if the current jail location would be suitable for a rebuild or expansion, Bass said he would not recommend it.
“We have talked about this a lot and you have heard from Bell Construction, the architects and from our standpoint. If you start any construction on the facilities you have now you will have to submit those plans, and you’ll have to bring the building you have up to codes,” said Bass. “Currently your building does not meet codes. You would have to spend a lot of money just to get that facility to meet codes and you would probably not net any beds out of it. In fact, you would probably lose beds going from 51 now to around 30 beds. I just don’t see it and its going to be more expensive to build. As you heard from Rick Bruin of Bell Construction it was like $4.5 million to $5 million more to try doing something with that site. I haven’t been happy with that site all along,” said Bass. “I just don’t think its there and I don’t think you are going to be able to get future growth out of it. When you build these jails, you have to think about the future. You need to select a site that has availability to grow because it is going to grow. I wish crime would stop but we know its not going to,” Bass continued. “And even if the county could acquire an empty lot next to the jail (Kirby property), Bass said there would still be no room for future expansion. “It’s going to box you in and you are not going to have room to grow. Depending on how many beds you wanted I suspect that (new jail on current site) would be a stacked jail. That means more staff. If you build multi levels that’s staff on the first floor, staff on the second floor, third, and fourth floors. Its really staff intensive. You’d build a radius design with a central control where you can look out and see all the inmates. Its not a linear jail but its laid out linear. You would have a mezzanine. It’s a second story but its inside with a staircase going up to it. I don’t see that (being built) downtown. Not to mention its going to tie up traffic downtown. You’ll have to shut down a street. You don’t have a layout yard and the backside of that property slopes off so I don’t know how much of it you could actually use. I think you need to be looking at property that you can take care of in the future,” explained Bass.
Committee members also discussed an available site on Allen’s Ferry Road behind Bizzy Mart with the biggest drawback they said being that the property is not currently in the city limits and not served by sewer. The Smithville mayor and aldermen have said they would not consider annexing this site for a jail.
The Smithville Elementary School property was also discussed as an option but some committee members pointed out that the school board still owns the site and that even if the county could acquire it the property would not be available on which to build a jail, possibly for up to four years, until the new school is finished all while the county’s costs for housing and transporting inmates to other county jails continues to soar. Others mentioned that putting a jail on this site might also raise public concerns in that it too would be near homes and a child daycare facility.
Chairman Green asked Bass at what point the county needs to formally hire an architect and builder.
“That’s up to your discretion but before you start concept development they need to be in place. I have never been for designing a jail without a piece of property. I have worked with counties who have done that a couple of times and there are always issues. It’s the unforeseen. If you get the architect and builder in place they can help you find the unforeseen and you can avoid them. Sometimes things pop up with a million-dollar price tag. Whatever property you pick you have to do the geos, the economic development study as far as the ecology is concerned, core drilling, site evaluation, etc. All those things have to be done by law. They (architect and builder) can help you get that done. I think you need to execute the contract. In this case you have done a lot of hard work. Your master plan is practically done. The key things you are missing are the site and the cost but we can’t get to that cost figure without having a concept development and we can’t determine that by just looking at renderings. A dormitory jail is a lot cheaper but that’s not how you set up prisoner classification. He (sheriff) needs two person cells so how many of those do we need,” asked Bass.
Committee member Tom Chandler made a motion that the real estate agent for the Hayes property be contacted to inquire about an updated price for the entire 38-acre site or at least an 18-acre section with an easement to Highway 70. Although the vote on Chandler’s motion was 7 to 6 in favor it failed to get the eight votes needed for passage.
Meanwhile Bass said he plans to take the county mayor and county commissioners together on trips to at least three other county jails for them to view recent jail projects. “I have arranged for three jail tours at Smith County, Rhea County, and Monroe County. I picked these three because they are more recent to show you what is being done with new construction techniques,” said Bass.