With a choice of building from scratch from the ground up or using prefabricated units, county management is confident that the right choice was made for the new jail facility on West Main Street Road in Batavia.
The first jail cell was delivered to the site Wednesday and installed on Friday. It will be one of about 100 such cells to be slowly and carefully transported by flatbed truck, an effort that Assistant County Engineer Laura Wadhams believes is well worth it.
“These units come to us completely finished on the inside, and once set into place, will be bolted together, and all of the electrical, HVAC and plumbing already installed will be connected to the rest of the building,” Wadhams said to The Batavian Thursday. “This is a cost-effective way of constructing these cells, as the other option would be to construct the cells out of (concrete masonry unit) block, which, as you could imagine, would be a very labor-intensive process.”
General contractor LeChase Construction Services has subcontracted with PennStress, a precast cell manufacturer that installs the remade cell units all over the eastern side of the country, she said.
“We do get a good product this way as well since these are manufactured in a factory with a rigorous quality control process,” she said.
The cell was installed at the facility with a crane on Friday, overseen by the construction company, workers, County Manager Matt Landers and Sheriff William Sheron. There’s a long way to go, Landers said, but this is “just one more step in the process.”
“It’s a milestone to mark the setting, it’s a good step in the process,” he said. “But it’s just one step along the way.”
Likening the building process akin to how Legos snap into place with one another, the prefabricated units are very secure, Sheron said. He has enjoyed observing the vision coming to life.
“It’s exciting, to go from the plans on paper to actually see things coming out of the ground,” he said. “It’s all coming together now that we can actually picture it.”
That picture includes a 184-bed facility to house men and women inmates. With a price tag of $70 million, it’s not something that Landers wants to do again in a long time, he said.
“Certainly, it is a milestone, we don’t plan on building out our jail for hopefully 100 years, which is why we’re trying to get it right this time, and building a jail as appropriate for our community for the next 100 years,” Landers said. “So I think we’ve done a good job of that … and it’s been a great process working with the sheriff and seeing where we are today.”
The plan is to get a substantial amount completed by the first quarter of next year, and to begin moving inmates in around June or July, Sheron said. It will then join the majority of other jails in New York State that house female inmates, and by keeping those inmates more locally to their homes, their families will be able to visit them more frequently and remain connected, he said.
“It’s a matter of the county manager, the county Legislature, all of us coming together and recognizing that we are well overdue. I would say that we’re working at a facility that was built in 1902. That was built at that time to take care of the population that they had then. And things have changed tremendously since then,” Sheron said. “I know it’s a substantial cost, but it’s one of those necessary evils. Unfortunately, in society, we have individuals that can get the following rules and regulations and laws. And I think it’s extremely important that we have a location to put those individuals that is not only safe for them but also safe for the officers that are involved with it.”
Top Photo of a prefabricated jail cell being lifted over to its designated place during the install phase on Friday; photos of the cell's interior, a crane lifting the container, Sheriff William Sheron, left, on scene, workers getting the cell into proper place, and relaxing after a job well done. Photos by Howard Owens.
