While Oklahoma County officials are still ironing out details for the location of a new jail, the facility’s actual design is much further along in the process.
Architects working on plans for the new jail completed a schematic design in recent weeks. The design includes hundreds of beds the county intends to use to treat and divert inmates with mental health issues away from Oklahoma’s criminal justice system.
The design calls for a single-story (two-level) jail with 2,328 total beds — enabling the operation to move around inmates when needed for maintenance, security or disciplinary reasons, giving it an official capacity of 1,800.
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It is configured to give jail detainees and employees access to natural lighting, outside exercise areas for each housing unit and safety and security features that limit detainees’ movements outside of the secure environment.
The county must figure out how to address a gap between the $220 million it has available and the at-least $677 million estimate from HOK, REES and Flintco (the project’s design/build team) that it would cost to fully build the project.
A 60-bed behavioral health center, planned to be built separately at the same location, is funded using $49 million provided by the American Rescue Plan Act. Patients’ care in that facility would be supported by Medicaid or Medicare dollars.
The exact location of the new jail and timeline of construction is uncertain after opposition from Oklahoma City Council members and Del City leaders to the county’s rezoning permit for a proposed location at 1901 E Grand Blvd., near the boundary of the two cities.
Despite public outcry, a 2-to-1 county commissioner majority authorized the county to purchase the E Grand Boulevard site, a decision they said at the time was an attempt to salvage the ARPA funding for the mental health facility. Commissioners also have filed a lawsuit to declare sovereignty over the site in an effort to move forward with jail construction without needing approval from the city.
But the project’s schematic design could work anywhere the county could find sufficient space to build, said Jeff Bradley, a senior principal with HOK’s justice division.
“We could have done what we are proposing at this site at the airport, or Stockyards City,” Bradley said.
Here’s what we know about the design.
Four two-level housing units would make up each pod of the new jail
The jail’s 1,800 beds (not including its flex space) would be used to house:
112 detainees needing critical care for mental or physical health needs requiring care from the jail’s medical services provider.
256 detainees with behavioral care rehabilitative needs supervised by jail detention officers.
1,432 minimum, medium and maximum security detainees.
Four housing units, each designed with access points for food and medicine deliveries, would make up each general population pod. Each housing unit would:
Hold 56 detainees in single, double, four and six bed cells, supervised during daylight hours by a single guard.
Include a multipurpose room with a detainee services kiosk, tables and chairs, plus an open interior dayroom lit with natural light, a kitchen support services area that includes a water fountain, a microwave oven and washer/dryer, plus a glass wall fronting a secure, outdoors recreational area shared by two adjacent units.
Deliver water, sewer, electricity, heating, cooling and other services to each prisoner’s cell through corridors outside the controlled space, eliminating the need for maintenance and repair workers to enter the jail itself to do their work.
Co-locate housing units in a way to make it possible for a single guard to keep tabs on 224 detainees during overnight hours when they are held in their cells. “That’s a tremendous savings for Oklahoma County,” Bradley said.
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The jail’s design also includes:
An intake/assessment center to separate arrestees who don’t need to be jailed, giving them a secure, dedicated hallway to follow outside the jail itself to get to the adjacent behavioral care center. “They never see the inside of the jail,” Bradley said.
A dedicated booking area with a common seating area for cooperative arrestees, holding cells for those who aren’t and an adjacent property room for arrestees’ belongings.
A 30-bed infirmary capable of providing detainees with dialysis, dental services, wound treatment, exams, X-rays, ultrasound treatments, blood analysis, physical therapy, counseling, group therapy and bariatric dialysis services.
A support wing where food is prepared and laundry services are provided.
A dedicated release center staffed in part by representatives of nonprofits who would connect released people with services they typically might need. After being released, people would be directed to a holding area where they could catch a bus to access those services. “There’s more public social services being offered in Oklahoma City than I see in a lot of places,” Bradley said.
A detainee services space that includes counselors, an office for a chaplain, a law library and space for two upstairs courtrooms for on-site legal activities.
A public access area where visitations or reunifications between detainees and families could happen on the lower level while court proceedings are held in two courtrooms above.
A staff services space with training rooms, lockers, armory, administrative offices, a workout space and open patio employees could enjoy during their breaks.
Jail costs escalating across the nation
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, non-residential building construction costs have climbed about 175% since 2009, and have climbed about 40% just since 2021.
“We meet with every department, all the staff, find out what they have now, what they don’t have and should, look at what the future could bring and plan accordingly,” said Bradley, adding HOK’s design accommodates the county’s need to be able to add more beds in the future. “We usually design to accommodate an operation’s future needs for 10 to 15 years out,” Bradley said.
At the cost of $335,000 a bed, Oklahoma County isn’t the only entity experiencing high costs to build new jails or prisons. Others include:
Cuyahoga County, Ohio, at $393,000 a bed.
Brooklyn, New York (a high-rise jail), at $2.64 million a bed.
Alabama, (a 4,000 bed prison), at $270,000 a bed.
“We are seeing those types of costs on projects across the country,” said Bradley, who added the jail’s estimated current cost of $677 million may be adjusted. “We have tried to build flexibility in this both for now and the future. We are doing value engineering now,” Bradley said.
Living Hell: An investigation by The Oklahoman of the current Oklahoma County jail
HOK involves health care unit in jail’s designs
The design team at HOK has fully embraced the concept of building jails that are designed to provide rehabilitative mental health services to jail inmates to keep them out of state criminal justice systems.
Over just the past eight years, the 1,600 employee company based in St. Louis, has designed 23 facilities including more than 5,000 beds geared toward the philosophy of improving mental health outcomes to help reduce recidivism and jail populations.
It also operates divisions that master plan and design aviation, transportation, arenas/ballparks, hospitals, embassy, law enforcement and defense-related projects.
Eighty-seven members of HOK’s staff and another couple dozen of designers working for REES and other involved subcontractors worked on the Oklahoma County jail’s schematic design, Bradley said.
Beyond jails, HOK’s justice division works on prisons, courthouses, police stations and similar types of projects.
“We pulled some of our medical people in, and the end result is that the county jail will be an Oklahoma-approved mental health facility,” Bradley said.
The next step for HOK/REES and Flintco is to take the jail’s schematic design and turn it into detailed plans that will be used to develop construction-related documents, Bradley said.
Contributing: Staff writer Jessie Christopher Smith
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Help over housing key aim behind designs for new Oklahoma County jail
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