April 29, 2025
By: Dwayne Page
Back to the drawing board!
During Monday night’s regular monthly meeting, the county commission voted to ask Treanor Architects and Bell Construction to come up with cost estimates to build a new jail complex at the current site on the public square as well as on a generic green space location. The commission also wants to know what the jail footprint and cost would look like if the county were able to purchase the additional half acre lot adjoining the jail on the east side.
Fifth district commissioner and Jail Committee Chairman Larry Green made the initial motion which was approved on an 11-2 vote. Commissioners Tony Luna and Glen Merriman voted against it.
“I make a motion that Treanor Architects and Bell Construction be asked to evaluate our current jail to find out what can be done to upgrade to Tennessee Corrections Institute (TCI) standards, how many beds we would pick up, what the cost of the upgrade would be, and what we would build next to the current facility on the land we own and the cost to give us the number (beds) TCI is requiring. These would strictly be estimates. We will not know any final costs on anything we do until we actually have architect drawings, and we send them out for bids. These are only estimates to help us make the decisions we need to make. This is doing our due diligence about what the cost estimates would be for downtown versus someplace else,” said Green.
Third District Commissioner Tony Luna echoed a concern raised during the public comment period by Ken Fennell, a downtown business owner with over 30 years construction experience about potential remediation costs if asbestos or other environment issues were discovered at the current jail location.
“This cost would not include what the cost would be if they find asbestos or lead pipes. That would not be included in that estimate. I would love to get an idea of what it would cost if they do find asbestos to remediate that,” said Commissioner Luna.
After Commissioner Green’s motion was adopted, Second District Commissioner Sabrina Farler, in a subsequent motion, asked for cost estimates to include the half acre lot next to the existing jail if it could be purchased by the county. Her motion was adopted on an 11 to 2 vote. Commissioners Larry Green and Glynn Merriman voted against it.
Commissioner Farler then made yet another motion seeking estimates for development of a one level jail complex on a generic green space. This motion was adopted 12-1. Only Commissioner Glynn Merriman voted against it.
Before the votes, Sixth District Commissioner Andy Pack asked for more than just the one option. “I would like to see the cost at the current location versus the possibility of the cost at a different location. I would just like to see comparisons and not just a cost for downtown by itself,” he said.
“Are they going to give us an estimate on how many beds they can feasibly fit on the current property and the property next to it that has been offered for sale,” asked Seventh District Commissioner Mathias Anderson.
“Yes” answered Commissioner Green.
“I think probably at the same time they (architects) are doing this (evaluating existing jail location) they could also determine what it would cost to build on a green space. One thing that would affect it is how many beds are we going to build,” said Commissioner Green. “We have never reached a decision about how many beds we are going to build. TCI has never really come back and said you need x number of beds. We know what the (CTAS) study (for future growth) said last year which was for 270 beds. We said there was no way we could afford 270 beds. Then they said you need 240 beds right now. We said we can’t afford 240. We talked about 190 beds and that was a compromise. They (Treanor and Bell) did give us prices on 150, 190, and 220 beds. We have those estimates but that was all in three- and four-story buildings downtown. It would probably be a different cost estimate if you were going to take those down to one level and build it on a green space,” said Commissioner Green.
“We will need to assess what the impact of this is to the downtown area not only after its built but while it’s being done,” said First District Commissioner Tom Chandler.
“To Tom’s point, building downtown you can’t bring materials in and stage them like you can if you are building out someplace where you have plenty of land to build it on. In that case you would have to build and bring materials in as you needed them. You couldn’t stage anything in advance,” said Green.
Treanor Architects and Bell Construction, who plan to meet with county officials as early as next week, will develop a plan at no cost to the county according to Green.
“If we have this cost comparison done by early June then we could all get back together (county commission) and have a discussion about where we want to go with it,” said Commissioner Green.
Commissioner Greg Matthews said if the county does not move forward with a plan anytime soon the budget committee should consider asking that the county reduce the 51-cent property tax hike for debt service set last summer.