Jail design like "herding ducks" architect says

The process of designing Cleveland County’s second jail is like “herding ducks” the jail’s architect said last week.

Ben Graves, a principal with the Norman firm, Architects in Partnership, said he continues to meet with county officials and others involved in the county’s jail project, to get their “input and needs.”

After more than two years of discussion, the Cleveland County Commission voted unanimously in September to build a second jail on a 29-acre plot of land along Franklin Road, near the York-Johnson Controls plant. Earlier this year, the commission voted 2-1 to purchase that land from Johnson Controls for $1.3 million.

Graves’ firm was hired for the jail project two years ago by former commissioners Bill Graves and Leroy Krohmer and current commissioner George Skinner, “when discussions began” about the need to build a new jail.

“It is like trying to herd ducks right now,” Graves said. “We had a very good meeting with the sheriff, the undersheriff and jail administrator. The four of us scratched the surface for administrative needs.”

In addition, Graves said he’s working with a design architect at his firm on the administrative portion of the facility. “That area is one of the four subcommittees we organized,” he said.

A second meeting — set for 11:45 a.m. today — will include representatives from Norman, Moore, Oklahoma City, Noble, Lexington and the University of Oklahoma’s police department.

“We’ll be working on the intake booking area,” he said. “We’re going to put up a couple of intake booking areas of jails and take them through these smaller county jails. We want to talk with them about how we can offer solutions to some of their frustrations in processing and booking inmates and helping them (the officers) get back on the road quicker.”

Hopefully, he said, members of the group “will be e-mailing me with ideas after the meeting.”

The Cleveland County jail is one of several Graves’ firm has designed. Other facilities include the Creek County jail, the Haskell County jail (currently under construction), a jail in Leflore County, a jail in Pontotoc County, a 145-bed facility in McIntosh County and a 210-bed facility in McAlester.

Hired in December 2005, Graves’ 21-page contract with the Cleveland County Commissioners calls for AiP to be paid 7.5 percent of the jail’s construction costs as its fee. And while no budget has been set by the commission, construction cost estimates for the jail have ranged from a low of $20 million to a high of more than $34 million.

AiP’s fee, the contract says, is contingent upon the county obtaining financing for the project and covers the services of a security consultant and a food services consultant.

Should that contract amount come in “below an established budget” the contract stipulates that AiP’s fee “shall be computed as a percentage of said budget.”

The contract also protects Graves’ firm should a public vote on the jail’s funding fail. “If a sales tax election is called and is not successful, the architect will be retained for all future issues,” the contract says.

Graves said the contract is a normal one used for public buildings.

All architect fees on public building contracts are “paid for by a percentage of cost of the project,” he said.

And though the design process is “always slow getting out of the block,” Graves said, he really is “pushing to get information from them (county officials.)”

“We’re going to be meeting numerous times with these folks,” he said. “I’ve sent an e-mail to Don Jones (the jail consultant), asking for a date for initial meeting on detention housing.”