Halifax County Manager Dia Denton Monday requested that commissioners give her a budget for a new detention center at the board’s January 21 meeting.
She provided the board with funding options for a $30 million, $40 million or $50 million facility.
Included in those options is an estimated debt service summary prepared by First Tryon Advisors to study in preparation for discussions during the upcoming meeting. She also provided the board with a spreadsheet showing the costs of housing inmates in other facilities. “This is a big project, big investment so I want you all to have plenty of time to think it through,” she said.
She told the board, “I think at this point we would probably tell you to look closely at the $50 million range,” which is based on some preliminary conversations with the architect as well as Sheriff Tyree Davis. It’s also based on current and future inmate housing needs.
As an aside, she asked the board to consider the court services building on Ferrell Lane in which former state Representative Michael Wray procured $8.2 million to help complete upstairs renovations. “That’s not quite enough to finish the full renovations, move everyone upstairs and complete that third floor and to do some minor renovations on the first two floors.”
That would include adding fire sprinklers to the building. “That adds about a million dollars to the project. We’ve requested about $5 million of this to be tacked on to finish that project so you’d be looking at maybe $45 million or so in project costs for a detention center.”
Administrative staff met Friday with the architects for a scoping meeting, she said, adding the county does not yet have the architectural contract. “We did ask them to go look at a couple of recent projects with other counties to get a full project cost.”
Denton noted that construction is just a piece of the cost. “You’ll have costs for your design … inspection permits, that kind of thing. We want to be able to bring that to you. We hope to have that for you on the 21st.”
During Monday’s meeting, Davis said there were 124 inmates at the jail and another 24 housed elsewhere.
The current capacity is 85 inmates — 77 males and eight females, which necessitates housing inmates in other facilities.
County Attorney Glynn Rollins said he was pleased with the work of First Tryon. “They have proved with other projects to be very helpful and we look forward to their assistance as we move forward on this jail project as well. First Tryon does a great job of breaking down as best they can what your projections might be for financing options."
