Death sentence for old jail?
After 33 years, the former remand centre’s concrete rooms are silent, its metal bunks empty, its purpose served. But is the building too ‘mean looking’ to get a second chance?
What can you do with a jail?
That’s the question hovering over the former Edmonton Remand Centre, currently sitting empty after inmates moved to the city’s new remand facility earlier this year.
“It’s really up in the air right now,” said Alberta Infrastructure spokeswoman Roxanne Nanuan, about the fate of the 10-storey, bunker-grade building in the middle of downtown Edmonton.
Nanuan said studies are looking into possible uses for the structure, but no decisions have been made. She could not give any specifics.
But Edmonton architect and consultant David Murray said there would be significant challenges to reusing the old remand centre, including because its “cruel and imposing design” and “mean-looking facades” may make it unappealing for other kinds of public use.
“It reads like a jail,” he said. “It has that feel to it.”
What to do with unused jails and prisons is a growing question around North America, as significant numbers of correctional facilities are being shut down, replaced or amalgamated into bigger facilities.
In some cases, old prisons or jails have been turned into successful tourist attractions or museums, like Alcatraz, while others have found new life as niche hotels.
In the early 1970s, Hostelling International took over the 150-year-old Carleton County Gaol in Ottawa, turning it into a 120-guest hostel. The HI Ottawa Jail embraced its shady past, putting private rooms in the old death row cells. The courtyard area was converted into a bar called Mugshots, which bills itself as “Canada’s only jail bar.”
“We have all kinds of people who come out of their way to stay here,” said front desk clerk Kyle Woods. “People always say, ‘I can’t wait to say I went to Ottawa and stayed in a jail.’ ”
Woods said occasionally a guest decides to move somewhere else, though, because “some people decide it’s a little too eerie.”
In Boston, the Charles Street Jail has been remade as the swank Liberty Hotel, billed as “New England’s premier luxury destination.”
One state prison in Ohio was being turned into a “reentry facility” for convicts returning to the community, and in Georgia, an old detention centre became the home for the Morgan County Library while library renovations were done.
In Detroit, the cells of a closed police precinct became artists’ studios as part of a community arts facility, 555 Nonprofit Gallery and Studios.
Other jurisdictions in the United States have considered using former correctional centres as drug treatment or mental health facilities, student housing, storage or laboratory space, or to take overflow inmates from other states.
But the transformations are not easy.
Having worked on a project to turn a St. Albert RCMP detachment into an arts centre, Murray said the construction used in secure buildings poses particular problems.
“It’s really good to try to reuse a building, but I think it’s very, very difficult to try to take a highly secure building for another use,” he said.
Murray said the old remand centre’s stern architecture and prime location may mean it has more value with the building gone.
“Honestly, I don’t think it’s a beautiful building,” he said. “It would have to be changed significantly to have some appeal with the public.”
Indeed, most of Canada’s correctional facilities have simply been torn down once their purpose was served.
The infamous Oakalla prison in Burnaby, B.C., was demolished and replaced by a subdivision in 1991 — though not before a local charity hosted a profitable weekend fundraiser with paid admission and a murder-mystery dance.
The old Fort Saskatchewan jail was demolished in 1994, and the old Calgary Remand Centre, which opened in 1978, was torn down in June 2008, replaced by an expansion of Bow Valley College. The 94-year-old Regina Jail was unceremoniously taken down in 2009.
But Jim Tessier, facilities manager with Alberta Infrastructure, said he would hate to see the old remand centre meet the same fate.
Complaints about conditions within the facility usually had more to do with overcrowding and treatment of inmates, and less to do with the structure of the building, which Tessier said was well-built and well-maintained throughout the three decades it was in service.
“I’ve sat in a few meetings (about its fate), and all I say is, ‘Guys, this is a good building.’ ”