New Monroe County jail design moves ahead, with persisting concerns about size, cost

The planned Monroe County jail and justice center project now has an estimated construction price tag of almost $207 million, which is about 3.5 percent more than the $200-million figure that county officials were given in mid-2024.

Getting a unanimous green light from county commissioners on Thursday night—to go from predesign to the schematic design phase—was a facility with a total of 271,482 square feet. That includes a jail with 500 beds. The current jail has 287 beds.

The new jail is planned for North Park, east of SR 46 off Hunter Valley Road. The current jail is located in downtown Bloomington at 7th Street and College Avenue. 

That total square footage breaks down like this: 143,662 square feet for the jail and sheriff’s office; 109,995 square feet for the justice center; and 17,825 square feet of shared space. 

The count of 500 beds breaks down like this: 80 beds for mental health care, 30 for medical needs, 26 for holding, 28 for inmate workers, and 336 for the general population.

Thursday's presentation on the predesign, from DLZ Corporation’s Scott Carnegie, was not fully embraced by all the elected officials at the table—it was a joint meeting of the county council and the three county commissioners. 

County councilor Kate Wiltz went as far as to say that if the council, as opposed to the county commissioners, were voting on the question of moving to the next phase of the project, she would vote no.  

The project timeline calls for the team from DLZ Corporation and WGS to work over the next three months to complete a schematic design by the end of May. At that point, refined cost estimates are expected. 

DLZ is the design/build consultant for the project. WGS is the construction manager. The letters in the construction manager’s acronym come from three different construction companies who are working as a kind of joint venture–Weddle Bros. Building Group, Garmong Construction, and Smoot Construction.

The all-in cost estimate presented on Thursday, including about $30 million in soft costs, was $236,947,833. Soft costs include: contingencies, land purchase, professional fees, bond counsel, permits, printing. 

Bed count

At Thursday’s meeting, Wiltz raised a concern that the bed count of 400 is too big. She noted that the council had previously adopted a policy position that the new jail should not have a bed count that is greater than 400.

The topic of bed count has been a controversial point from the very start of the project planning phase—which has a history dating back to an ACLU lawsuit filed in 2008, about overcrowded conditions at the Monroe County jail. 

A 400-bed jail would still mean increasing  the number of beds by 40-percent over the current number of 287. 

In July 2024,  Monroe County sheriff Ruben Marté argued for a 500-bed jail based on the need for a functional capacity of 400. The standard “functional capacity” of a jail is defined by the Indiana Office of Corrections county jail operations division as 80 percent of the total bed count.

If it is analyzed as the needed functional capacity, then the 400-bed figure would translate into a raw bed count of 500. 

From the public mic on Thursday, Seth Muechler who works with the group Care Not Cages, was critical of the size—500 beds with room to expand. Muechler called the preliminary design a “mega-jail.” The $237-million cost is an “absurd” amount of money, Muechler said, especially in the context of a potential recession, with increased fiscal pressure from the state and federal government. Muechler said, “People are hurting, and this is where we are putting our efforts and putting our energy?”

Access to outdoor space

Wiltz also objected to the lack of access to the outdoors for inmates. Part of the predesign work includes “garage doors” that open off indoor recreation areas—but there’s a security barrier between indoors and outdoors that remains in place. Wiltz called that arrangement “just inadequate” compared to best practices for “recovery and healing and helping people move through the system and not get stuck in it.” 

Responding to Wiltz, Carnegie pointed out that the evacuation yard could be used as outdoor recreation space, if the jail transition team decided to use it for that purpose. There would be some small additional cost to make the fencing around the evacuation yard compliant with Department of Correction standards for use as outdoor recreation space, Carnegie said.  

Cost estimates

The total estimated cost of the combined jail and justice facility, based on the preliminary design, came in at $236,947,833. 

The maximum amount of bond issuance for the jail that had been recommended last year by Financial Services Group (FSG),  the county’s financial consultant, was $229,254,468.

FSG’s maximum recommended figure is based on a local income tax for the  jail enacted at the maximum 0.2 percent, and the use of all of the county’s share of the economic development local income tax. 

So the arithmetic that councilor Peter Iversen wrote on his printed copy of Thursday’s presentation was $236,947,833 – $229,254,468 = $7,693,365. That means the current estimate for the total cost (hard construction plus soft costs) is  $7.7 million more than the maximum recommended bond issuance.

Looking just at the difference in hard construction cost estimates, the figure of $206,580,404 presented on Thursday is about $6.5 million more than the $200-million number county officials were given mid-2024.

The FSG bond issuance recommendation was based on a local income jail tax rate of 0.2 percent—that’s the maximum allowable rate under state law. But in early October 2024, the county council enacted a rate lower than that—0.17 percent.

Iversen said on Thursday  that the council needs to factor into its thinking the long-term future additional operational costs of the new jail—the staffing it will take after the facility is constructed. He wants to see a study of the additional FTEs that will be required to operate the jail—past the 20-year bond period.

Iversen also wants to see a report on expenditures to date on the jail project project. 

Responding to a B Square question after Thursday’s meeting, county council president Jennifer Crossley said that it looks like the increased cost estimates would mean that without some revision to the project itself, the jail tax rate would need to be increased to the maximum 0.2 percent. But she indicated she is not willing to increase the jail tax rate. 

Jail design, facility layout 

Drawing scrutiny on Thursday from councilor David Henry was the layout of the overall facility which includes space to the northeast of the facility set aside for a day care center for county staff. Henry said, “I guess my heartburn is about a child care facility in proximity to a jail facility. I have kids—contemplating what that would look like dropping them off there.” Henry also questioned whether that is the most convenient location for a day care facility to serve county staff, given the way the county’s work force is  dispersed around the county.

From the public mic, chief deputy sheriff Phil Parker was not enthusiastic about the idea of locating a day care facility that close to the new jail. Parker said,”Whether we want to admit it or not, there are some folks in [the current county jail] that are violent and can be problematic if they're on the outside, hence they're there.” About the alley between the jail and the county parking garage, Parker said, “If you watch that alleyway, we have had numerous, numerous confrontations in there.”

At Thursday’s meeting, commissioner Julie Thomas floated the idea of putting a child care facility back on the bid list, but the idea got little traction around the table. 

The preliminary design for the justice center includes two stories. A location for the jail and justice center was chosen by county commissioners outside of downtown Bloomington, because there is not enough available land in the downtown, to build a one-story jail that is large enough to accommodate the jail population. 

Responding to a question after the meeting from the B Square about the idea that the project was supposed to be a single story, Thomas texted, “The key is to have a one-story jail, which is the plan. We always understood a two-story justice building would be planned, to save some money.”

Commissioner Jody Madeira was sworn into office on Jan. 1 this year, and on Thursday was participating in her first public conversation on the jail. Madeira confirmed to The B Square that her understanding of the predesign work is that the new jail itself would be one-story tall, while the justice center would be two stories. Madeira texted the B Square: “My understanding is that the jail is one story except for that one portion which has a catwalk and an upper level of cells with the elevated security areas.”