Plans for new jail under way

by Karen E. Culp

SBJ Staff

The walls of the Greene County Jail will come tumbling down soon some of them, anyway.

The oldest portion of the jail is set to be razed in the spring of 1999 to make way for a new jail facility, to be incorporated with the existing jail tower, said David Coonrod, Greene County presiding commissioner.

The new jail facility will be constructed on the jail's existing campus and will adhere to a direct supervision-type design. The direct supervision design is more a pod design, compared with the linear lockdown the jail now has.

"Right now, the prisoner has to leave the lockdown to eat, and they have to be transported. With the new arrangement, we'll save on personnel because we will not be escorting the prisoners so much," Coonrod said.

The county hired Flintco, a company out of Tulsa, Okla., to serve as consultant on the project. The company spent several months researching other jail facilities and determining what type of design the new jail will have.

The $15 million expansion will be paid for with funds from a law enforcement tax approved by Greene County voters in 1997. The municipalities in the county will also be able to use the jail to house their prisoners, and Springfield plans to move its city lockdown to the new jail location.

In order to accommodate the additional parking it will need, the county had to purchase some property on North Campbell Avenue, Coonrod said. The county is in the process of purchasing four properties, beginning at 1016 N. Campbell and continuing south to Nichols Street. The county has agreements to purchase two of the homes on the street, and is negotiating on the other two.

"We don't ever want to have to use a condemnation process. We don't want to give the county a black eye in that way. It's very important to us to maintain good relationships with our county citizens," Coonrod said.

The acquisitions also helped the county "square up its holdings" around the jail, and will provide space for a buffer yard between the county property and the North Campbell neighborhood, Coonrod said. He added that the county does not ever envision going west of Campbell with its property acquisition.

Parking will be a concern for the county, though, and for that reason the county is considering building a multi level parking structure, possibly one that is shared with the city. Regardless of whether the city gets on board, the county is going to need additional parking for its judicial courts building, courthouse, jail and other offices, Coonrod said.

The county will have construction drawings ready for bid in early spring, Coonrod said. The architect will be HDR-BKL, a group out of Dallas, Texas, but Coonrod said the county hopes to use local contracting companies on the construction work.

The new jail will double the county's capacity for incarceration, Coonrod said.

The county chose to keep the jail on the existing campus rather than scouting a new site because of the need to keep the jail close to the judicial courts facility.

"We need to keep those two buildings as close to one another as possible. Otherwise, you face a whole new series of risks," Coonrod said.

The law enforcement tax is also funding a city-county trunked radio system and the addition of law enforcement personnel to the Greene County Sheriff's office and the municipalities within Greene County.

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