The Warren County Commission has approved contractor bids for a major renovation of the Warren County Jail, with costs totaling more than $3 million.County officials have been working on plans to …
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The Warren County Commission has approved contractor bids for a major renovation of the Warren County Jail, with costs totaling more than $3 million.County officials have been working on plans to rework the jail space within the Warren County Courthouse building since last year.The project will consist of converting the current offices of the Warren County Sheriff’s Department into additional housing for inmates, and building new offices for the sheriff’s department in the basement of the courthouse.No actual square footage will be added to the courthouse. Officials say this is the most cost-effective way to address ongoing overcrowding in the jail.The current jail facility was constructed in 1997, with an intended housing capacity of 106 inmates. But in recent years, Sheriff Kevin Harrison said the day-to-day average jail population is closer to 130 inmates.That overcrowding agitates inmates and increases safety risks for jail staff, Harrison previously told The Record.The expanded jail space will include individual holding cells for particularly violent inmates, but also more open dormitories for cooperative inmates. Housing capacity will be increased by about 52 beds, depending how the space is used, Harrison said.County officials hope the renovation will delay any major building addition to the jail as the population in Warren County continues to grow.“We’ve been in our current building 20 years. I would like to think that (the renovation) gets us easily 10 or 15 years down the road,” Harrison said.Project costsThe costs for the jail expansion were split up into four main project areas: general construction, fire suppression, HVAC and electrical.The general construction contract was awarded to Demien Construction Company for almost $2.3 million. The fire suppression system contract was awarded to Ozark Fire and Sprinkler Company for $37,000.The HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) contract was awarded to Peters Heating and Air Conditioning for $391,600 and the electrical systems contract was awarded to Meyer Electric Company for $617,000.The total cost for the renovation is about $3.34 million. However, upgrades to some existing equipment at the jail also are being wrapped into the project.Old cameras within the jail facility will be replaced by 26 new cameras at a cost of more than $40,000. Some of the cameras are original to the building and produce very low quality images, Harrison said. They will be replaced by modern, high-resolution cameras.A more significant upgrade is the installation of electronic control valves on individual plumbing units for toilets within the jail. This is to prevent inmates from intentionally flooding the facility, which has been a serious headache for the sheriff’s department over the last 20 years.The control valve systems will cost $92,000.Harrison said none of the funding for the jail renovation will come from Prop P, a half-cent sales tax approved by voters in April. The Prop P funding (once it takes effect later this year) will be used primarily to increase pay for sheriff’s deputies and jail staff, and to hire new staff.Project phasesThe renovation of the building will be done in two phases. First, starting this summer, the basement of the courthouse will be built out as offices for the sheriff’s department. Harrison said the new office layout has been designed for efficiency.“I think it will streamline our behind the scenes here,” he said.The sheriff anticipates moving offices in late 2018 or early 2019, at which point the current office space will be demolished to make room for new jail housing.Phase two of the project will add two large dormitories and a separate five-cell unit to the ground floor of the jail. The individual cells will be used either as two-person housing, or to isolate especially violent inmates that stir up trouble among the others, Harrison said.Meanwhile, the dormitories are open spaces and offer a little more freedom of movement, which serves as a motivator for inmates to be cooperative so they can stay there rather than in a cell, he said.Two padded cells also will be added to the jail for inmates at risk of harming themselves. Harrison said mental health and self-harming inmates have become a significant concern.The entire jail renovation is hoped to be completed by next summer. But before making full use of the expanded facility, Harrison has one more step for the project.One area at a time of the existing jail will be emptied of inmates so workers can deep clean and sanitize areas that haven’t received enough attention since being built in 1997.Other maintenance issues that have been building up for the last 20 years will also be addressed, and the inmate housing will get a new coat of paint from top to bottom, Harrison said.“When we move people back into it, everything will be fresh and it will look better than the day we moved into it,” he said.Warren County Courthouse and Jail