Parts of the current jail are over a century old
MONTICELLO – Design planning for a new Sullivan County Jail has quietly been continuing and on Tuesday, the county legislature approved having the county’s architectural consultant, LaBella Associates, to apply for a state grant toward that.
The exact amount has not been determined, but it would be applied to the design of an environmentally sound facility. The total pool of NYSERDA funding is $900 million.
In recent years, estimates on what a new jail would cost have ranged from $80 million, down to $40, million. The lower number is an estimate from a mid-west firm which says it can build a 300-bed jail for that price.
Legislature Chairman Scott Samuelson said the scope of the jail has changed since it was first proposed a number of years ago.
“I think they were looking to cut 20,000 square feet out of the original design,” Samuelson said. “Times have changed and certain things they thought they needed six or eight years ago are not necessarily things they need today so they are working with all the partners – the DPW, the sheriff’s department, to identify the things that they don’t necessarily need. We are trying to bring the cost of building a jail to the very least we can get it to and still be functional and still do the job that we need it to do.”
The county has set no specific timeline for building a new jail to replace the more than 100-year-old facility in Monticello, once called a “dungeon” by a member of the state Commission on Corrections.
