Jail won't look like a jail, officials say

Cleveland County’s new jail probably won’t look like a jail, should be cheaper to run than the current downtown facility, and should be designed for future expansion, two officials involved in the project said Monday.

District 1 County Commissioner Rod Cleveland and Donald Jones, a Cushing-based consultant hired by the commissioners to help with the jail’s design, said the facility should be built to fit in with other buildings in the area.

“It probably won’t look like a jail,” Cleveland said. “The front would look like a municipal building, more like a warehouse, with high walls and small windows.”

Both Cleveland and Jones are part of a recently organized committee charged with gathering information and ideas for the jail. Last week, the group had its first meeting with the jail’s architect, Ben Graves.

That meeting followed a decision — made by commissioners in September — to build the jail on a site along Franklin Road, east of U.S. 77. The county purchased the 29-acre plot of land south of the York-Johnson Controls plant for $1.3 million earlier this year.

While some residents voiced opposition about the Franklin Road site, Jones said the goal is to make the jail fit aesthetically in the area.

“You probably won’t see razor wire and things like that,” he said. “There will be an effort to make it not look like a detention facility.”

And though both men emphasized county officials are still “gathering information and have made no decisions yet” about the jail’s size or structure, Jones said the final design should allow for “easy expansion” for future inmate growth.

“The needs assessment for future bed space indicates that in 20 years, the facility should be able to house 700 or more inmates,” he said. “The jail should be built with that plan in mind.”

By anticipating the 700-plus inmate number now, Jones said county would reduce future construction costs.
“It would be much more cost effective to plan for it now,” he said.

Along with room for expansion and a non-jail look, Cleveland said he wanted to consider alternative energy solutions for the facility.

“I’m looking at wind, solar and geo-thermal energy,” he said. “I hope to make it carbon neutral for one, and hopefully, to provide its own power. We want to plan for the future, to try and get the most cost effective solution we can.”

Cleveland said other considerations include where to house the county sheriff’s department and how to use the existing jail in downtown Norman.

“I will want to look at ways to continue to use it,” he said. “The (downtown) jail was built to hold 134, and we’ve been running 177 detainees and personnel around the clock. That’s a lot of people. I think that once we’re able to move into a new facility, then we can take a look at the downtown jail.”

Jones agreed, saying any future use of the existing downtown jail would need to include plans for remodeling.

“They are going to have to bring it up to code,” he said. “Even with simple things like heating and cooling.”

But some of those cost could be reduced Jones said, if the county houses low security inmates, or females at the downtown jail.

“If you reduce it to low-security inmates or females, with the right modifications you could reduce some staff positions and keep costs lower. But again, the commissioners haven’t made any decisions yet. Everything is still being looked at.”

Cleveland said the downtown facility could also be used to house inmates ready for trial; or be slowly phased out of use over the next 10 years.

“That’s what I’m asking the jail administrator,” Cleveland said. “We’re working to get all the operational costs. It could be, over the next few years that the (downtown) facility will go away, maybe sometime in the next decade.”

Cleveland said county officials are “looking at the operation costs for both jails,” to see which might come out better. “It’s not like building a house, where you decide on a size and a budget ahead of time. Here, there are so many variables.”

With the jail’s location selected, Cleveland, Jones, representatives of sheriff’s Dwayne Beggs’ office and architect Ben Graves have planned several meetings to gather information and make decisions about what components will be used in the jail’s design.

Last week, Graves said he would like to have a concept developed by mid-November.