The city of Charlottesville and counties of Albemarle and Nelson have individually approved financing plans for the multimillion-dollar renovations to the jailhouse that serves all three localities — even with a reduction in the project’s scope after the Trump administration’s tariffs drove the cost of construction up significantly.
The votes to approve the financing were delayed in June after construction bids came in millions of dollars over budget. Instead of the $39 million that was budgeted to cover the cost of construction, which is just part of the total $49 million to be spent on everything including design and planning, the lowest construction bid came in at $53 million, from Lynchburg-based English Construction.
Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail Superintendent Martin Kumer now says he and his team have worked with English to negotiate what could be accomplished within the original budget for construction costs.
They chose to do this since restarting the process would risk the project losing the 25% reimbursement, roughly $11.9 million, from the commonwealth of Virginia.
Kumer presented the reduced scope of the project to each of the localities before they took their final votes. With their approval, the Jail Authority Board voted at its Thursday meeting to allow Kumer to formally enter into a contract with English.
Kumer has broken the previous plan into two phases. The first phase, which will demolish the east wing of the jailhouse and replace it with a two-story structure in its footprint, will still be completed. This was prioritized because, like most of the building, the east wing was built in 1974, but it has been renovated the least.
The new two-story structure will add 16,000 square feet to the jail, but will not increase inmate capacity. The additional space will bring that part of the facility up to 2018 codes, which require more square feet per inmate than the current ratio at the jail. The 65 beds in that section will be fully wheelchair accessible as well.
The new structure will also add 12 new individual rooms for family, friend and professional visitation, which Kumer said is much more ideal than the current shared visitation room.
Other additions in Phase 1 include:
Three new outdoor recreation areas.Two mental health offices with group therapy rooms.Two additional mental health community provider rooms.Two purpose-built mental health housing areas with a total of 14 beds.One large inmate classroom.14 additional office spaces for staff.
Phase 2 was originally planned to renovate and reconfigure roughly 40,000 square feet of the west wing of the jail. That phase of the project would have removed the bar grate from the housing areas to meet 2018 space standards for dormitory and dayroom spaces. It also would have replaced exterior windows and replaced and added toilets and showers to meet 2018 standards. Lighting, plumbing, heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems were also to be upgraded.
Kumer said that the smaller line items on this list will be done over time using the jail’s annual maintenance budget, but the HVAC replacement, which was the impetus for the entire project, will get done as a part of the contract with English.
This is critical to improving conditions for inmates in the jail, according to Jesse Crosson, founder of the Second Chancer Foundation, which provides support for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people.
He recounted his own experience as an inmate in the jail two decades ago.
“It would be 110, 120 degrees,” Crosson told The Daily Progress. “There’s no airflow. It was sweltering. It was miserable. We had guys falling out from heat stroke. It was just fundamentally inhumane.”
Crosson said he believes that renovating the jail and improving conditions will make it more likely that inmates will be able to be rehabilitated.
Others disagree. A group calling itself the People’s Coalition has protested the renovation with slogan such as "Can’t get well in a cell," suggesting rehabilitation is not possible in jail no matter the conditions.
Harold Folley, a civil rights and racial justice organizer with the Charlottesville-based Legal Aid Justice Center who is part of the group, has said that the money being spent on the jailhouse could be better spent elsewhere in the community and should be redirected to other social services that prevent people from going to jail in the first place.
"The People’s Coalition continues to call for real investment in community resources — housing, mental health care, reentry support — not wasteful spending on incarceration," Folley said in a statement delivered to The Daily Progress.
Crosson, as a self-described restorative justice advocate, said he can understand why people want to divert the money and rid society of all forms of incarceration.
“I would love to get to the point where we have the support of services and structures where we don’t have to put anybody in jail, but we’re not there,” he said.
The renovation work is set to start Sept. 15 and is estimated to be completed within 2 1/2 years.
Despite the construction moving full steam ahead, Folley said the People’s Coalition is not giving up.
"Our movement is far from over," he said. "We’re building power, we’re growing stronger — and we’ll be back."
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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