Lawrence County nears launch for $23M law enforcement center

A ribbon-cutting ceremony and public tours were held July 18 in recognition of a multimillion-dollar Lawrence County project that is expected to unite its sheriff’s office and jail under one roof by summer’s end.

The Lawrence County Law Enforcement Center, a $23 million building at 1525 Missouri Drive in Mount Vernon, comprises a 120-bed jail that within a few weeks will replace the county’s 52-bed facility built in 1986. The law enforcement center project was years in the works and largely came to fruition due to voter support in late 2021 of a three-eighths-cent sales tax that funded construction, said Lawrence County Presiding Commissioner Bob Senninger.

Proceeds from the tax first arrived in May 2022, and its first full year of collection generated over $1.5 million in 2023, according to county Treasurer Kathy Fairchild.

“We expect modest growth,” Fairchild said of the tax’s future revenue, which covers the debt payment as part of the county’s 20-year lease-purchase agreement. “Our debt is structured so that the annual payments increase in 2028 to capture that anticipated growth.”

Once the debt is repaid, one-eighth cent of the sales tax will be dropped with the remainder to be retained for operations and maintenance, according to the county website.

Addressing needs
The 34,258-square-foot center, which sits on an 8.53-acre site near the Highway 39 and Interstate 44 interchange, is substantially larger than the county’s 4,060-square-foot jail it has utilized over the past nearly 40 years. Nabholz Construction Corp. is construction manager at risk on the project designed by Joplin architecture firm Elevatus LLC.

“It was needed because our old jail was not a good place for us to house prisoners,” Senninger said, noting the facility frequently is overcrowded, which forces officials to transfer inmates to other county jails.

For example, Senninger said the county had nine suspects in the 2020 murder of an Aurora woman who were being housed in various other counties as the case moved through the court system for a couple years. While the county’s annual cost in 2023 to board inmates in other counties was substantially less than the three prior years, it still was over $224,000, according to Fairchild. That followed a record-high year of $510,140 in 2022, which was preceded by $482,645 in 2021.

“It will cut it way, way back,” Senninger said of the new center’s impact on out-of-county boarding costs, adding he hopes other counties will soon start paying them to house some of their inmates. “Some of the money that we’ll save on that will go toward hiring new people for the building.”

Sheriff Brad DeLay said his department has approximately 50 full-time employees, which includes all divisions.

“We can always use more, especially in the jail division,” he said via email. “Honestly, I can’t give you an exact number of how many we need because of the new facility. I am sure we will need a few more, but we are still working that out.”

The county purchased the undeveloped property from the city of Mount Vernon in 2020 for $1, according to officials, with the requirement of beginning construction within five years or the land would revert back to the city.

Just down the road at 1549 Missouri Drive, the county also is constructing an updated Lawrence County Health Department facility. The $5.4 million, roughly 15,000-square-foot building – estimated to wrap by December – will house the Women, Infants and Children program and include exam rooms, vaccination and immunization rooms, administrative offices and storage and filing space, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting. The county is utilizing American Rescue Plan Act and Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Funds for the project.

Upcoming movement
While Nabholz officials deemed the law enforcement building substantially complete by late June, Senninger said supply chain issues mean the county is still awaiting some equipment and furnishings, along with training on the new systems, ahead of sheriff’s department personnel and inmates making the move.

“We’re hoping to get in by the end of August, but most likely I would say mid- to late September when the prisoners will be over here and then the facility will be fully functional,” he said. “I’d say probably 95%-98% of the county sheriff’s office will be housed in here.”

Senninger said only some of the bailiffs will maintain a couple of offices in the county’s judicial center, which is roughly two miles from the new facility.

“The sheriff’s office is in the judicial center, and they’re busting at the seams as it is, and so we have a preliminary plan of how we’re going to move people around,” he said, noting the bailiffs and public administrator will likely be swapping office spaces.

The long-term future of the current jail building at 300 E. Water St. is still to be determined, according to officials. The facility started as a 24-bed jail but was expanded to its current 52-bed capacity over the years by moving out the sheriff’s offices.

“Preliminary plans, after we clean it up, is to use it for storage,” Senninger said. “The circuit clerk, the county clerk, the assessor, all these people have to keep records. Pretty soon, you run out of places to keep the records.”

The law enforcement center will include sheriff’s administrative offices, evidence storage, a multipurpose room for trainings and meetings, a visitation area, kitchen and laundry services and a housing area comprising eight dayrooms and an indoor-outdoor recreation area. Six two-tiered dayrooms have cells holding 104 beds with the other two single-level dayrooms including 16 beds.

During a facility tour, Rick Fobair, project superintendent with Nabholz, said the dayrooms face a central control room that provides complete sight lines into each pod. The control room personnel can see into the pods, but the inmates can’t see out, he said.

“You’re not going to know – if you’re an inmate – do you have one officer or 10 officers out here. It adds a little extra security,” he said, adding Nabholz has worked on the project for about 17 months. “The computers will be set up so that you can handle all the locking mechanisms and the security watch cameras throughout the building.”

While county officials don’t expect the new jail to reach capacity any time soon, expansion opportunities are part of growth plans to the west and south of the current building.

The facility is designed to allow two additional 96-bed expansions, as well as more office space, if necessary.

“It would be basically a similar design to what you’ll see here,” Senninger said.