Supervisors review changes to jail design (2024)

Adjustments to the location of the Page County Dispatch Center to be included in the new Page County Jail complex are expected to bring the costs of the project back in line with the $16.7 million bond issue passed by voters in November 2023.

Bids for the construction of the jail facility were opened July 11. The current jail has housed inmates since 1936, but the condition of the facility has deteriorated over time, creating the need for the new jail and related facilities.

The new law enforcement center will include the Page County Jail, the Page County Sheriff's Office and the Page County Dispatch Center. The facility will be located at the south end of Clarinda on the Essie Davison Farm ground.

Page County has been working with the Samuels Group to determine the location and design of the new facility. However, on July 18, Samuels Group President Sid Samuels informed the Page County Board of Supervisors that some of the bids for specific aspects of the construction project came in higher than expected.

Samuels said the mechanical bid was substantially higher because having the Page County Dispatch Center in the center of the facility as originally planned would change the classification of the entire building. Since the dispatch center would be considered an essential service, seismic brackets and hangers would be needed to ensure the center remained operational following a natural disaster.

"So we're looking at (it to see) if we could reconfigure that floor plan a little bit and get that dispatch out of the center and get it off to the side where it could be treated as an addition," Samuels said at that time.

Jeff Curtis of the Samuels Group met with the Page County Board of Supervisors Sept. 5 and reviewed an adjustment to the floor plan that would move the dispatch center to an exterior portion of the facility.

Curtis said the Page County Dispatch Center could be separated from the rest of the law enforcement complex by widening a shared wall between the Page County Sheriff's Office and the Page County Dispatch Center to 20 inches. This would help address the need for seismic brackets in the other portions of the facility.

"What will end up going on is between those two 8-inch walls there is going to be a 4-inch expansion, or gap we'll call it, that enables that building's quotes to be under its own structural requirements, which fall within the requirements and guidelines for our Class Four," Curtis said. "We do not need to relocate any of the electrical room or the switch gear by doing this, which will definitely bring our costs back down where we need to be."

Meanwhile, Curtis also presented a change to the design of the jail cells to the board on Thursday. That change involved eliminating individual showers that were planned for each cell.

"Now what we're going to do is in each day room, where typically we have three cell compartments, we'll have one shower room for those three compartments. That will eliminate a lot of the extra metal panel work that's being done in those areas," Curtis said.

Curtis said the change would still comply with regulations set by the Iowa Department of Corrections. At the same time, the change will create some savings for the county in terms of plumbing needs and the number of fixtures used.

"The overall square footage of the jail area is staying identical to what we originally had planned," Curtis said.

Since some bid packages, like the mechanical bid, came in higher than estimated and no bids were received on others part of the project like the electrical work, Samuels informed the board on July 18 that those packages would have to be re-bid.

With the necessary design changes now in place, Curtis said Sept. 5 that the new bid documents should be ready for release in two weeks.

"It's not as quick as we were hoping. We are definitely challenging everybody to get that done," Curtis said.

During the meeting on July 18, the Board of Supervisors did approve the bid from Crain Construction for the site work needed to get the property ready for the start of construction. This has allowed the project to keep moving forward during the redesign and rebidding process.