Construction to begin on Elmore County prison in 2021, Ivey says

Gov. Kay Ivey today announced that construction will begin early next year on a new men’s prison in Elmore County, on a site near Alabama 229 and Rifle Range Road.

The project is expected to create approximately 3,900 construction jobs, Ivey said. It will be one of three men’s prisons built to allow the state to phase out old, overcrowded complexes.

A team involving CoreCivic, Caddell Construction, DLR Group, and R&N Systems Design, will handle the project. As with the other prison projects, negotiations are continuing on the cost of the project.

“I am pleased with the forward progression of this pivotal initiative and look forward to financial close, which is anticipated to occur in late 2020," Ivey said.

Last month Ivey announced proposed sites for three new men’s prisons and the private developer teams negotiating with the Alabama Department of Corrections on the projects. The Elmore County site was the only one that did not specify a location. Ivey announced last year a plan for the state to negotiate with private developers to finance, build, and maintain three men’s prisons that the state would lease and operate.

The other men’s prison facilities will be:

A Bibb County site built by Alabama Prison Transformation Partners (Star America; BL Harbert International; Butler-Cohen; Arrington Watkins Architects; and Johnson Controls, Inc.) with a proposed site located near AL-139/CR-2.

An Escambia County site built by CoreCivic (CoreCivic; Caddell Construction; DLR Group; and R&N Systems Design) near Bell Fork Road.

CoreCivic and Alabama Prison Transformation Partners were the only developer teams still competing for the projects. They submitted proposals in May in response to a request from the Alabama Department of Corrections. The request says the state’s cost for leasing the facilities would be capped at a total of $88 million a year.

Alabama’s prisons are filled beyond capacity. As of June, the state had 19,562 inmates in facilities designed for 12,412, an occupancy rate of 157%.

The state has closed Draper Correctional Facility and the main portion of Holman Correctional Facility in the last two years.

The Department of Justice alleged in April 2019 that conditions in men’s prisons violate the Constitution because of the levels of violence and what the DOJ alleges is a practice of excessive use of force against inmates by correctional officers.

While most of the DOJ report focused on violence in the prisons, it also noted the deteriorating conditions of the state’s prisons and said the facilities “do not provide adequate humane conditions of confinement.”

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