Plans for new jail advance
By Steve Herring
Published in News on April 8, 2015 1:46 PM
Wayne County could be moving inmates into a new misdemeanant jail on North William Street by July or August of 2016.
Project manager Jason Hopkins of Mosely Architects, the company designing the jail, told Wayne County commissioners on Tuesday that they project could be advertised for bids as early as May 3.
That would mean a bid opening on either May 28 or June 2.
The county plans to construct the jail on the old Masons department store property it owns on North William Street.
Construction would take approximately 12 months.
Hopkins and Dan Mace, Mosely Architects' vice president, updated Wayne County commissioners on the progress on the project.
Commissioners have earmarked $10 million for the jail. Hopkins said that the projected base bid is approximately $8.7 million.
However, the final cost will still reach near the $10 million price tag once all of the fees are added, County Manager George Wood said.
Hopkins reviewed the bidding documents -- the architectural plans and schematic drawings for the jail -- that he said are 98 percent complete.
Site approvals are being finalized as well, he said.
The jail will be located to avoid what Hopkins called "an undesirable proximity to a convenience store" that adjoins the county-owned parcel.
The floor plan of the jail was modified to add another 1,500 square feet to satisfy requirements of the state Department of Health and Human Services, he said.
The additional footage is "spread out" over the housing units, making the size of the facility approximately 38,500 square feet, he said.
"As a result of that we had enough room to go to a single bunk configuration so there is a single bunk on the floor instead of bunk beds," Hopkins said. "In an indirect supervision environment where you have officers in a control room trying to monitor inmates, it is much better to have single bunks in terms of visibility."
Hopkins said that in his opinion that arrangement vastly improved the safety and security of the building.
The additional space also will allow more bed space so that the jail will be able to hold 221 inmates instead of the 217 provided for in the original plan.
Commissioner Ray Mayo asked if the county could turn each single bunk into a double bunk in order to add more inmates.
Hopkins said that the beds could not be doubled because of state rules governing the number of inmates that can be housed within a certain amount of floor space.
The project is being reviewed by the state Department of Insurance, Hopkins said. However, since the jail is located inside Goldsboro, the city will be the primary reviewing entity since it will be the one issuing building permits, he said.
The satellite jail would be the first phase of a larger judicial center project.
It will front on Stronach Avenue with an area behind it reserved for the main jail to be constructed at a later date.
Provisions have been made in the plan to provide for a secure connection between the satellite jail and the future larger jail, Hopkins said.
Hopkins told commissioners the project costs include the demolition of the existing building.
Commissioners also sought and were given assurances that as much debris from the demolition as possible could be ground up and used for fill on the site.
The single-story facility would be T-shaped 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 secure, controlled entryway facing that street.
Each pod would have a fenced-in recreational yard.
Commissioner Joe Daughtery said he had been asked by an attorney if there would be rooms for attorneys to meet privately with their clients.
Hopkins said interview rooms would be located near the main entrance, but that the attorney and inmate would be separated by a glass partition.
They would not be allowed to pass anything among themselves, he said.
If that is not sufficient, there is space in each housing unit where an attorney could have a "face-to-face" meeting in a "contact environment" with a client, he said.
Commissioners also asked that consideration be given to video visitation so that an out-of-state relative would be able "visit" with an inmate.
Currently such visits would be set up in-house from the lobby to the housing units, Hopkins said.