Alternate site for new Monroe County jail mulled, land to be appraised, feasibility study still not done
Monroe County commissioners have moved ahead with consideration of other land, besides the county-owned Thomson PUD, as a potential location for a new jail and co-located courts facility.
At their regular Wednesday meeting, commissioners approved contracts with two firms to have appraisals done of some land that is located in the vicinity of SR46 and Hunter Valley Road, north of the city of Bloomington.
The amount to be charged by the two firms for their appraisal work is significantly different—$950 for Advisio and $3,750 for First Appraisal Group. County attorney Jeff Cockerill said that the lower price charged by Advisio is due to the fact that the firm had recently undertaken an appraisal of the same property.
After Wednesday’s meeting, Cockerill told The B Square that the appraisal work by both firms is expected to be completed in four to six weeks.
Still not completed is a required feasibility study for the construction of a new jail, after the commissioners approved a $40,000 contract with RQAW Corporation in late October 2023 to do the work. The amount of working time, as opposed to calendar time, for completion of the study had been expected to be around eight weeks.
According to Cockerill, in mid-January a serious meeting was held by county officials with representatives of RQAW about their progress. The meeting was attended by Cockerill, Monroe County sheriff Ruben Marté and commissioners administrator Angie Purdie, Cockerill said. At that point, Cockerill said that RQAW had not really started the work.
For B Square background on the question of the need for a new county jail, see: Monroe County sheriff, commissioners square off at committee meeting, ACLU lawyer says: “Look, you need a new jail. Everyone knows that.”
Wednesday’s approval of the appraisal contracts for the land north of Bloomington came after last week, the county commissioners took the occasion at the start of the county council’s Tuesday meeting to state their latest intention about the location of a new county jail.
Last Tuesday, commissioners indicated that they would be looking near North Park, in the vicinity of Arlington Road and SR 46.
The county council is the fiscal body of the county, which means that there still needs to be majority support among councilors for the decision on jail site selection, which it is up to the commissioners to make.
Last Tuesday’s announcement from commissioners about their current thinking for the jail site came just a few minutes after a joint executive session with the county council on the topic of real estate acquisition. That’s one of the reasons under Indiana’s Open Door Law that public bodies can hold meetings that are closed to the public.
County councilors did not appear to be expecting that the commissioners would be announcing their intentions that soon after the joint closed session.
After last Tuesday’s meeting, county council president Trent Deckard told The B Square: “I will say this: This council has dutifully been engaged in solutions all around this issue, and we will remain so.” Deckard added, “And whatever form that takes, we will be there figuring this out. And that’ll be our reality.”
At last Tuesday’s county council meeting, commissioners Julie Thomas and Lee Jones ticked through the reasons for focusing away from the county-owned Thomson PUD property, which had last fall been a leading contender for a new jail site. They restated those reasons at this Wednesday’s meeting. Commissioner Penny Githens joined the meeting via videoconference.
The fact that the Thomson PUD is already owned by the county had been a point in its favor. But detracting from that basic cost advantage was the fact that on further investigation, to construct a jail with colocated courts and related facilities, a big pile of debris would have to be removed, and Duke Energy’s high-voltage lines would need to be relocated.
The combined cost of moving the debris pile and the high-voltage lines is more than $6 million, according to a note in the commissioners meeting information packet. The note also indicates that moving the power lines would mean a construction delay of up to two and a half years.
Also a factor, according to commissioners, in their remarks last week and Wednesday morning, was opposition by neighbors of the Thomson site.
The general vicinity of land to be appraised was not a surprise. At an August 2023 meeting, two additional sites, neither owned by Monroe County, were unveiled as under consideration as possible jail locations, but were not pursued at that time. One was south of the Monroe Hospital. The other was north of Bloomington in the vicinity of Arlington Road and SR 46.
By November of last year, commissioners were already looking to reduce expectations that the Thomson PUD site would be their choice for a new jail location.
By mid-Feburary this year, the idea that the commissioners had mostly cooled to the idea of locating the jail at the Thomson site was established by Julie Thomas at a county commissioner candidate forum. In that Democratic Party primary race, the incumbent Thomas is facing a challenge from county councilor Peter Iversen.
