Franklin County’s $360M jail making progress
Marilyn Brown COLUMBUS — has kept regular tabs on the new Franklin County jail, the biggest construction project currently undertaken by the county.
She was at the construction site west of downtown a couple of months ago, and then again recently. Progress is evident to anyone driving along Fisher Road, as the $360 million-plus project has evolved from a steel skeleton into an actual building.
“Wait until you start walking inside,” said Brown, president of the Franklin County Board of Commissioners, as she started a recent tour with other officials. “The second floor, which we’ll see, wasn’t here when I was here” previously.
Nearly two years after the formal groundbreaking, the Franklin County Corrections Center looks more like the initial architectural renderings than a construction site. The first section of the building, containing 429,000 square feet, including cell space for about 870 inmates, should be completed by the end of 2020 and occupied in the first half of 2021.
Construction of the second part of the facility is still in the design phase, said deputy county administrator Kris Long. Work should begin by next summer, adding space for several hundred more inmates.
Plans call for the jail to take the place of the decades-old downtown facility and a newer lockup on Jackson Pike on the South Side that together house more than 2,000 people. The downtown jail will be closed once the Fisher Road facility opens, while the Jackson Pike location will still house male inmates.
The main structure of the first part of the jail is in place. Workers were under cover before the wet spring weather, keeping the project on schedule, said Mark Cunningham, senior project executive at Gilbane/ Smoot, the firms heading the work.
Eventually, the fencing along Fisher Road will be removed, and there will be separate entrances for deliveries, visitors and inmates.
Inside, electrical, plumbing and other systems are in place and functioning. Throughout the facility, crews are pouring concrete floors, completing masonry work, assembling steel cells and, in some parts, doing finishing work.
The kitchen, laundry and other areas were built to accommodate the first part of the jail and the new section to be built. Much attention has been paid to logistics during the design and construction, down to how hot meals and dirty dishes are moved between the kitchen and inmates’ living spaces.
For example, large walk-in refrigeration spaces are separated by secured doors. Deliveries will be made through one set, while access to kitchen spaces is closed and locked, said Eric Ratts, principal architect at DLZ. Once the delivery doors are locked, the kitchen doors will be opened to allow inmates access to put things away.
Detention spaces also are taking shape, with 55 inmates each to be housed in separate two-tiered pods under the direct supervision of deputies at all times. There will be recreation and common areas, interview rooms, and large windows providing natural light and fresh air. With the layout, inmates will spend much of their time in their pods instead of having to be moved from room to room or outside the facility for medical and other services.
“It’s a totally different way of thinking,” Chief Deputy Geoffrey Stobart said. “It’s going to be safer for our staff; it’s going to be safer for the inmates.”
It’s still a jail, and it will have secure places for incoming inmates who pose problems. But the booking area will be more like a lobby, with natural lighting, phone access and other features designed to set a more positive tone for those who find themselves facing time behind bars.
Most county inmates are in jail for 18 or fewer days; more than two-thirds are gone within three days.
Still, the booking area of any jail is “one of the most high-stress places that most people will ever be,” said Maj. Chad Thompson of the Franklin County sheriff ’s office.
“If you’ve never been arrested, there are very few things that I can imagine would be more stressful than sitting in one of those chairs,” he said. “Being void of natural light just adds to that.”