Was watching the 10pm news last night & had a Hard laugh. Tacoma Wa is giving away their Jail Annex. I guess we can put the bad sellers in here.
Heres the story.
Quote:
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One jail - free to a good home - A prisoner, bottom left, stands alone in a 'time out' cell in the Pierce County jail annex on Wednesday. The county is hoping to give away the temporary building.
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Pierce looks to unload lockup
Aaron Corvin; The News Tribune
From a real estate perspective, it's a steal.
Pierce County is offering its 500-bed temporary jail annex in downtown Tacoma for free to anyone who wants it - inmates not included.
If the offer works, the county can fulfill its commitment to get rid of the 48,140-square-foot steel building, and save on the cost to demolish it. If the offer fails, the county estimates it will cost $350,000 to tear it down.
Either way, the structure - built for $6.2 million in 1996 - must go.
"It was going to cost us money to demolish it, so we thought if there was some way we could give it away, (somebody) could come and get it, and we could save a lot of money to demolish it," said Dan Cagle, director of facilities management for the county.
Any takers would have to foot the bill for disassembling the building, hauling away the parts and reassembling them.
But is anybody really interested in getting their hands on a huge steel box with 45 toilets and an exposed ceiling inside - even for free?
Perhaps surprisingly, yes.
Kittitas and Yakima counties are interested in using the building as a jail, Cagle said, and other jurisdictions might be interested in it as a large storage building.
The City of Tacoma is not.
"I don't know of a need that we have that the jail would serve," said deputy city manager Jim Walton. "Plus, it's not the greatest-looking asset we have around."
The proposed giveaway of the temporary jail is the latest chapter in a long story about Pierce County's jails and how it's paying for them.
Between 1990 and 1994, voters rejected three proposals to increase property taxes to pay for a new jail. Then inmates sued in 1995 over jail crowding problems. Erecting the temporary jail helped the county settle the federal case.
Consequently, the county went back to voters in 1996 and asked for a 0.1 percentage point increase in the sales tax to pay for a new, permanent jail to relieve overcrowding in the existing 772-bed jail and the 500-bed temporary jail. Voters overwhelmingly passed it.
Pierce County owns the temporary jail and the land on which it sits. But it had to obtain permission from the City of Tacoma to build the temporary jail next the County-City Building.
Under an agreement with the city, Pierce County was supposed to take down the temporary jail by July 2001.
"The agreement was subsequently extended since we were making good progress on the new jail," said Scott Hogman, the county's construction projects manager.
The new $54 million, 1,008-bed jail is expected to open Feb. 7, seven months later than planned. That's when equipment can be moved into the new facility - including 500 beds from the temporary jail - and corrections officers can train there, officials said.
In March, the county expects to begin moving 500 inmates from the temporary jail to the new jail. The transfer of inmates is expected to wrap up in April, officials said.
The jail was originally scheduled to open last July. Then the date was pushed to December. Technical and construction problems caused the delays. Software glitches had crashed the touch-screen computer system that operates the doors and cameras that will corral and monitor inmates.
Workers are conducting performance tests of the new jail's electronic security system, officials said. Also, the county is working with general contractor and construction manager Absher-Kitchell on issues concerning the new facility's construction budget. Officials have said that in a worst-case scenario, the new jail's construction budget may have a cost overrun of up to $2 million.
"The picture isn't a lot clearer right now," Hogman said. "Frankly, I don't think the overrun is going to approach $2 million. We're hopeful that we'll be able to work out the difficulties we've had along the way and not have this go into lengthy, protracted litigation."
For now, Pierce County hopes to jettison the temporary jail annex by June. If no one acts on the county's offer, then officials will demolish the building and sell as much of it as possible for scrap.
"The scrap value is really minimal," Hogman said.
The county parks department considered using the building for tennis courts or soccer, Hogman said, but "that's impossible with the number of interior columns inside the building."
County officials also view the jail annex as an eyesore and want to remove it as part of a plan to spruce up the County-City Building campus, Hogman said.
The county plans to restore the site of the annex to a 160- to 170-space parking lot, and install landscaping and other street improvements.
While it's not pretty, the utilitarian building has gotten the job done, officials said.
"It has definitely served its purpose," said Eileen Bisson, the county corrections chief. "It's been very useful to us."
Aaron Corvin: 253-552-7058
aaron.corvin@mail.tribnet.com
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