The Peoria County Jail needs some serious work. The county board now has five potential options for how to tackle it — depending on how much money and time they're willing to spend.
The board contracted with architectural company Dewberry to draft a new jail master plan. Jody Mays is a senior associate with consulting firm CGL Architects.
"The existing facilities are in poor condition. And I don't know that that's a surprise to folks here," Mays told the county board on Thursday. "The county has spent quite a bit of money recently on major maintenance projects, roofs, and the ring road and plumbing repairs. But it's still an older facility."
The jail was built in 1985, with an addition built in 1997. Mays said the facility isn't designed to serve today's jail population, particularly as it pertains to detainee medical and behavioral health needs. Hiring and retaining correctional officers is also an ongoing concern for the Peoria County Sheriff's Office.
Mays said the average cost of maintenance required to keep the jail running currently exceeds 20% of the replacement cost of the facility. That includes kitchen and laundry areas she said are beyond their useful lifespans.
CGL recommends decreasing the number of beds in the Peoria County Jail from 492 to 400. But the first and cheapest option would retain the current capacity. It calls for a $23 to $31 million program over two years that's essentially maintenance work.
"You're simply repairing what you have, and you're likely going to be operating vacant space if the bed count is in fact higher than the forecasted need," she said, noting the kitchen would also remain too small for current needs.
Variations on that first plan call for a new kitchen or an addition the current kitchen, with overall estimated costs of $25 to $34 million for both, also over a two-year span.
The second option would demolish portions of the original 1985 facility, replacing it with 64,000 to 84,000 square feet of new housing and support space. That would take about 4.5 years to complete, at a projected cost of $107 to $130 million.
"The benefits of this approach are that you would have new, flexible beds designed to today's standards and built to meet the needs of the general population and the special populations that the sheriff is currently managing," Mays said.
She said the new design would also enable direct supervision, an inmate management model that isn't doable in the current facility; and the potential for a women's center. But Mays noted it'd cost about half as much as building a brand-new facility altogether.
A new facility as imagined in the master plan would be about 154,294 square feet. That's larger than the current 125,000 square foot jail.
"The result would be a modern and efficient jail designed to current standards that supports the needs of inmates and staff," Mays said. "The new building would incorporate sustainable features and would have lower operating costs for utilities and maintenance with modern systems, and the county could avoid significant investment in the existing facility."
Still, the current jail would need to continue operating over five years while the new facility is built. And the price tag is a hefty $221 to $271 million.
Peoria County Sheriff Chris Watkins said he currently leans towards option one, but is still doing a deep dive into possibilities.
"My concerns with option two, where you're doing an addition, is you're putting a new building on top of another old building. So in 15 years, when that old part's done, are you going to tear that down and put a new one in? So that's a concern of mine, and that building a new one is obviously a major cost to the taxpayers," Watkins said.
Board chairman James Dillon acknowledged there's some frustration with the pace of the process, but said the county board is making planning a priority.
"All the plans are now going to be in place with the jail and the one that we're doing at the courthouse currently so that we will leave future boards a blueprint of how to proceed, instead of just throwing money at things, not knowing where it's going to end up," Dillon said.
