County buys more land for future jail
By Steve Herring
Published in News on December 3, 2014 1:46 PM
Wayne County commissioners Tuesday unanimously approved the purchase of nearly four acres adjacent to the site where the county plans to build a new jail.
The land is south of the county-owned old Masons department store on North William Street.
The county will pay $135,000 for the land owned by Bob Jackson. The four acres will give the county an approximately 14-acre site.
"That will give us the necessary room to build, plus for expansion," County Manager George Wood said.
Wood said he and County Attorney Borden Parker handled the negotiations with Jackson, who is chairman of the Wayne County Republican Party.
"As you are facing the Masons property it would be to your right (south)," Wood said. "It would be between that and the old textile plant.
"What we are trying to do is to aggregate enough property to where we can have what we are calling the misdemeanant jail we are building. Now you would have an additional (larger) jail as that space becomes necessary and a sheriff's department would locate there."
The plan is to eventually relocate all of the offices currently housed at the current jail to the North William Street site, he said.
"What we should have now is some additional property where we can even have an addition because what you don't want to do is get landlocked," Wood said. "That is one of the issues here (with the current jail).
"If you have an opportunity to develop that campus, we need to go ahead and do it."
The purchase of the additional property will not affect the planned location for the misdemeanant jail, Wood said.
Officials with Moseley Architects, the company designing the jail, were aware of the negotiations while they were developing the schematic design, Wood noted.
The plan is to build a $10 million, 217-bed misdemeanant jail on the property.
Wood has said the project will not require a property tax increase.
Commissioners last month accepted the schematic design for the jail and authorized Moseley to proceed with the full design.
No money has been authorized for construction. However, the board has approved a $692,876 budget amendment, which is part of the $10 million, for the project, which includes $630,326 for architectural, engineering and design fees based on 7 percent of construction cost and $62,500 for operations and transition planning services.
That figure is subject to change depending on the final construction cost, which is expected to be about $9 million.
An additional $972,966 will be required for fixtures, computers, furniture, site and construction testing, design costs and document printing.
The project could go out for bid in March or April of next year.
The misdemeanant jail would be the first phase of a larger judicial center that the board plans to name in memory of the late Sheriff Carey Winders.
The site plan showing the smaller jail includes a larger area behind it reserved for the main jail to be constructed later.
It misdemeanant jail would be a single-story facility, containing about 37,000 square feet of floor space. It will be paid off through a 20-year loan.
The design shows a T-shaped misdemeanant jail with the top of the T, where the cell pods would be located, running parallel to Stronach Avenue.
The leg of the T, which would house administration, the kitchen, laundry and other offices, would be perpendicular to Stronach Avenue, with a controlled entryway facing that street.
The county has set aside $5 million for the project.