Cost estimate for new Lorain County Jail is $116 million and rising

ELYRIA — Members of the county's newly formed Jail Advisory Board were presented with a $116 million estimate for a new Lorain County Jail at their first meeting on Friday. The estimate by Granger Construction, dated Jan. 23, would cover the cost of building a one-story, 125,000-square-foot, 432-bed jail in Elyria to replace the current 422-bed jail, which is more than 50 years old. And that number will only get higher the longer the county waits. Costs are rising by about 5 percent every year construction is delayed, Commissioner Jeff Riddell and a representative for the county's construction manager said. Commissioners also have not decided how the new jail would be paid for, whether it's real estate taxes or a sales tax. Sheriff Jack Hall, Common Pleas Judge Chris Cook, Common Pleas Clerk of Courts Tom Orlando, Probate Judge James Walther and commissioners Riddell and Marty Gallagher were the six members of the seven-member board at Friday's meeting. Commissioner David Moore was out of town on family business. Board members asked questions of construction managers and the architectural firm hired by the county in the past several years, and also questioned why those professionals hadn't questioned the process to this point. A new headquarters for the county Sheriff's Office and a new county juvenile Detention Home are not included in the cost, officials said Friday. Those projects would happen at a later date. Riddell said everyone knows the jail "is the biggest rehab facility in Lorain County," where people with substance abuse and mental health concerns end up after committing crimes. "Not wanting to be accused of being overly liberal ... but I do believe that the jail has changed from what we've seen on TV over the decades," he said. "It's not filled with bad guys, bodies full of tattoos. A certain significant amount of the population is our neighbors, friends and family members that have tripped over the law and they've got mental issues or substance abuse issues that caused that, and they're now housed with all of these other people and that needs to be addressed in a new facility. "Without adding the duty of a degree in social engineering to the sheriff's resume, we need to provide the staffing and the space and so forth to adequately deal with those issues," Riddell said. Current jail concerns Consultant Norm Hills, hired in 2021 and then again in 2023 to consult on a new or updated jail, said Friday that the current facility is "absolutely abhorrent." "It is in disrepair, it's old, it's not efficient," he said, with "many life safety issues" — conditions that could lead to injuries, deaths and lawsuits. He ticked off a list of complaints: The roof leaks. The foundation is deteriorating. The heating, ventilation and cooling equipment on the roof is inefficient and failing. The fire alarm system is antiquated and that parts that work are faulty. The backup generator is inefficient. Door locks are past their useful life and in disrepair, and that matters "when a 600- to 800-pound door and steel lock stands between you and an inmate hanging there," Hills said. Hills also said the population of female inmates has doubled in the last 10 years, and the current jail has never had enough cells for women. There are not enough separate cells for inmates with mental health, substance abuse and medical needs. Overcrowding in the jail this week forced Hall to ship 10 women with those classifications to the Cuyahoga County Jail in downtown Cleveland, the only other jail in the region capable of holding them. The daily cost for those inmates to stay in the Cuyahoga County Jail is $2,340. Lorain County taxpayers are footing that bill, Hall said. Board members were quick to agree that a new jail is needed. "I challenge anyone to say we should pour more money into that," Walther said. "That jail is destroyed," Gallagher said. Design, planning and cost Eric Ratts, vice president of DLZ Architecture in Columbus, and his firm were hired in late 2023 to start designing a new jail. A veteran of 150 jail construction projects, Ratts said his company's mantra is "Our best jail is our next jail," because it learns something new with each project. That means working with the sheriff and the community to find out what their needs are. He said many discussions with jail staff and stakeholders led to Friday's presentation of a proposed new jail site, layout, plan and a path for future growth and upgrades. When it comes to a jail, architectural plans take into account factors like security, emergency response, room for future expansion, staff retention and the needs of inmates, Ratts said. The proposed new jail design is one story, since a two-story "mezzanine"-style design raises safety concerns, he said. Corrections officers should be able to see inmates, but not be seen. That means one-way glass windows and good sight lines with fewer blind corners, Ratts said. Speaking of windows, inmates like to break or vandalize them. The new design would incorporate skylights instead of traditional windows for natural lighting, which Ratts said has been shown to reduce stress on inmates. Hired in November to do preconstruction services, Granger Construction Regional Vice President for Ohio Margie Ramsey and John Bort, director of preconstruction services at Granger, briefed the board on the proposed project and construction budget. Ramsey said her firm has built 16 county jails and has experience with the right national corrections facility contractors and subcontractors who specialize in secure electronics and security-conscious construction. She said jail construction typically requires some national subcontractors, but noted that between 43 percent and 60 percent of the subcontractors on the proposed Lorain County Jail construction probably would be local firms and that her firm would host public meetings to keep the community up to date when the time comes. The goal is to reach what is called a "guaranteed maximum price" or GMP — a cap on the total cost of the project — so Lorain County won't pay a dime more than that, Riddell said. Bort said the construction market and associated costs are "still a little volatile" but "we want to make sure we have a good cost that we feel certain about." Ramsey said her firm has never had to tell a client it couldn't build a project for the agreed GMP. Riddell said he was glad to hear that. "No one wants to work with someone who says 'It's $95 million' then comes in and says 'Oops, it's $110 (million),'" he said. Commissioners in late 2022 set aside $20 million to start the process of designing and building a new jail. Hills and another consulting firm, CGL, both recommended replacing the jail instead of rehabilitating it.Another advisory board meeting is tentatively scheduled for later this month. The current plans are that no matter who commissioners are, when the design phase is complete and the funding is secured, whomever is in office "can push the button," Riddell said. "We're getting all the legwork done to do what is necessary to support the building of the jail," he said. Advisory board controversy The advisory board was created only after Prosecutor Tony Cillo's office issued a legal opinion that said commissioners had to form one, when they were already years into the planning process. Three weeks after calling the opinion "incomplete" and saying he and his fellow commissioners disagreed with it, Riddell thanked Hall for seeking a legal opinion that let commissioners know they had to form a board. "We were not aware of that when this project started," Riddell said Friday. In 2021 when plans for a new jail got started, "there was quite a lot of chaos at the commissioner level," he said. DLZ didn't tell the county it needed to form a board because, Ratts said, his firm doesn't give legal advice and tells its clients to rely on legal opinions from their attorneys. Until Hall and Cillo brought it to their attention, commissioners "didn't realize the statute existed," Riddell said. "We didn't exclude anybody, we included everybody," including mental health agencies, the Sheriff's Office and county courts, he said. Cook said he agreed with Riddell, looking at notes of meetings the commissioners with him and his fellow Common Pleas judges in late 2024. While commissioners weren't entirely compliant with the law, it's "also not entirely accurate to say we were excluded," Cook said. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.