Barnes County Jail Update
Adolfson & Peterson Construction, who is currently managing construction of the new Barnes County Correctional Facility in Valley City, have largely been blessed with mild weather throughout the winter and dry conditions as spring has sprung. And despite a recent twoand-a-half month delay in receiving the jail cells for the facility, A&P Senior Superintendent Konrad Johnson says that the cells have arrived and been installed, and that the project is making good progress toward being finished in August 2021.
The 20 jail cells arrived on site last Monday, and all of them were inside the facility that same night. On Tuesday, the cells were in place and on Friday, the final precast pallet was installed, closing the building up.
The new jail cells give the new facility an interesting connection to the century-old jail that serves as the current Correctional Facility. Pauly Jail Building Company built the jail cells for Barnes County’s jail in 1908 and then serviced the doors on those same cells 111 later. Then, Pauly Jail was contracted as the company that would build the jail cells to be placed inside the new correctional facility in Valley City. And after those cells arrived at the site, the process of getting them prepped and into the building was a bit different than it was on the first go-around in 1908.
The contractor unloads the cells from their truck, sets them down on a slab where they’re prepped, set them on what Johnson says are “basically large roller skates.” Another cell is stacked on top and they’re welded together before being rolled inside by a forklift, pushed into place and then set. After that, the process begins again.
Now that the cells are installed and the final wall has closed up the building, Johnson says crews are working on getting mechanical systems up and running.
“We’re a couple of weeks away from putting our ceiling grids in,” Johnson says. “About half the building is painted out, so we’re getting toward the finish stage very fast.”
Despite the cell delivery delay, Johnson says, A&P are making good progress, making up for some of the time they lost. They’ve redone their sequencing to allow for a slightly different path to completion, adjusting for the cell delay, and they’re moving forward with speed and precision.
“Right now the facility is scheduled to be ready for operation the week of August 26th,” Johnson says, “but we’re looking to try and get that back to August 9th, since the original turnover date was August 3rd.”