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Committee favors single-story option for jail addition

This option is the one preferred by a citizens committee for a law enforcement center addition to the Floyd County courthouse. In the photo the existing courthouse is in brown on the right and the proposed jail and Sheriff’s Office is in shades of purple on the left. Prochaska & Associates
This option is the one preferred by a citizens committee for a law enforcement center addition to the Floyd County courthouse. In the drawing the existing courthouse is in brown on the right and the proposed jail and Sheriff’s Office is in shades of purple on the left. Taco John’s is in the lower left corner of the photo. Prochaska & Associates drawing
Prochaska & Associates designer Jim Classe points out some of the features of a proposed Floyd County law enforcement center design at the meeting Thursday. Press photo by Bob Steenson
Prochaska & Associates designer Jim Classe points out some of the features of a proposed Floyd County law enforcement center design at the meeting Thursday.
Press photo by Bob Steenson
By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com 

A citizens committee looking at options for a new Floyd County law enforcement center has decided it favors a one-story addition that would be built west of the courthouse.

The total estimated cost — including renovations to the courthouse — is $13.37 million.

After a few more revisions in the preliminary design for that plan, the committee may be ready to present all the options to the public and seek input in November or December.

The committee could then present a recommendation to the county board of supervisors, and if the supervisors approve, a bond referendum could be scheduled to vote on approving funding for the project.

The committee members decided near the end of a meeting Thursday that they like the single-story option best. The option is based on the first of six different plans that have been presented over a series of meetings since June.

All the other construction options have included multiple floors for the addition, ranging from two floors to a three-story addition that would be nearly as tall as the courthouse.

Even the single-floor option could include a small section for elevators and restrooms that would reach all five floors of the courthouse.

County Sheriff Jeff Crooks and Lt. Brian Tiedemann have said all along they preferred the single-story option for jail efficiency and security, but could make other options work if they had other advantages that the committee preferred. Tiedemann is in charge of courthouse security and is the former jail administrator.

“I liked the concept of some of the other designs, but it just came down to practicality,” Crooks said after the meeting.

The single-story 32-bed jail and law enforcement center addition itself would cost about $9.74 million.

An additional $3.63 million would be for courthouse renovations that would include replacing windows and installing a new heat pump system, renovating existing courthouse space on all five floors to make connections to the LEC addition and new elevators and restrooms, relocating and remodeling some offices, and extending a fire protection sprinkler system to the courthouse.

Here are the cost estimates for all six options, including contingency estimates and overhead soft costs. All options include courthouse remodeling and all options except Option 3 include a 32-bed jail:

• Option 1 — Single-story addition west of the courthouse; $13.37 million. Floyd County LEC OPTION 1

• Option 2 — Three-story addition west of courthouse; $12.85 million. This option would be almost as tall as the courthouse because each floor would be significantly taller than the relatively short courthouse floors. This plan has been called unworkable by members of the Sheriff’s Department, because it splits up jail functions among too many floors. Floyd County LEC OPTION 2

• Option 3 — Do not build a jail but remodel the top floor of the courthouse where the jail currently is located into holding cells, and transport all detainees and inmates to facilities in other counties; $15.17 million in current dollar costs for doing this option for 20 years.

• Options 4, 4B and 4C — Single-story jail with two-story office section; $14.30 million. The two-story section would include offices, lockers, squad room, meeting rooms,  dispatch center and other non-jail space. The three versions are mostly different arrangements of how the jail and office sections would be situated in relation to the courthouse. Cost estimate is for version 4C. Floyd County LEC OPTION 4

At one point in the meeting Sheriff Crooks wondered about the size of the project.

“We’re going way beyond the scope of the jail,” he said. “This all started as a jail committee.”

He said he could see building a lobby and an entrance, but questioned adding new restrooms for each floor of the courthouse and some of the other courthouse projects that were being included.

“There’s tons of issues with this building,” Crooks agreed, referring to the courthouse, “but this is the jail committee. We’re trying to build a jail.”

Jim Classe, a designer with Prochaska & Associates, the county’s consulting firm on the project, said some of the courthouse remodeling will be required to add the new elevators that will bring jail detainees and inmates up to the courtrooms on the upper courthouse floors, and to create corridors to the elevators.

“You are required by law to provide ADA-accessible toilets on each level,” Classe said, referring to Americans with Disability Act requirements.

He said some of the courthouse renovations could be done at a separate time than the jail construction and connections to the courthouse, but a couple of the members of the committee expressed concerns about having to pass separate bond referendums.

County Auditor Gloria Carr, who has advocated for courthouse remodeling to be part of the project since the beginning, said the county Board of Supervisors has been talking about needed repairs such as windows and a new heating and cooling system since 2009.

“Because we were doing the elevator up five floors, that’s why I thought this is an ideal time to put in the bathrooms all the way up,” Carr said. “We’ve got to get compliant” with ADA requirements.

Crooks said, “Just from my point of view, as the sheriff, I’m looking to build a jail facility. I’m looking to put a jail facility in so that I secure the safety of my jailers, my deputies and the general public, because we’re not safe upstairs right now, we’re really not. We’re understaffed and we’re not safe.”

The process of considering building a new Floyd County jail began because the current jail is far below state standards, including contact between jailers and inmates and the ability to separate detainees by gender, seriousness of the charges and other considerations.

The state jail inspector has not said he will close the Floyd County jail, but he has said the county needs to address the situation.

Classe said it’s important for the county to preserve the courthouse as a historical asset, and it makes sense to do some courthouse renovations at the same time that a new jail is being built.

For example he said, the new jail will require heating and cooling and it will be less expensive to extend that to the courthouse while the jail is being built and other necessary connections are being made rather than to try and replace the existing courthouse heating and cooling system later.

Linda Tjaden, a Floyd County supervisor and chairwoman of the LEC citizens committee, said her concern is that everyone on the committee “is on the same page.”

“We need to be very clear to the citizens to say, we took it upon ourselves also to look at some of the current issues that we have (in the courthouse), here they are, what do you feel about that, as a citizen? If we went ahead and lumped some of that in as a bond, what do you feel about it?” Tjaden said.

She said some people have said they would be against a new jail if it didn’t also address some issues in the courthouse.

After informally agreeing they preferred Option 1, with some more modifications, members of the committee agreed to meet again in November to go over the requested changes in the designs and to set up forums to present the ideas to the public.

The next committee meeting will likely be Nov. 9.

 

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