A Tuesday afternoon Grayson County Fiscal Court meeting, Jailer Jason Woosley told magistrates that multiple bids for the construction of the Grayson County Detention Center expansion had been received.
Woosley said all the bids well-exceeded the expected cost of the expansion, with the least expensive bid being about $5 million more than the anticipated $14 million cost of the project. DLZ Corporation, the project’s architecture firm, said in May the “probable hard construction cost estimate (is) between $12.3 and $13.3 million.”
Woosley told magistrates he’s putting the project “on hold until we decide something, and I’m not in a hurry,” to push to the project forward.
The expansion is planned to take the GCDC from its current 537 beds to 738. Included in the 201 additional beds would be 176 dorm-style beds, 25 segregation cells and four medical cells.
The expansion would also include new areas for intake/booking, a kitchen and laundry, classroom, medical and office spaces, a public entry space, and visitation area. Woosley said Tuesday, though, that one option going forward would downsizing the expansion by several thousand square feet, eliminating the new kitchen, classroom and recreation yard.
Originally adding nearly 44,000 square feet to the current facility, the expansion of the detention center would enable the female jail facility to be moved to the primary GCDC campus on Shaw Station Road, and would add 20 to 25 new jail employees to the payroll, according to Woosley.
By Ken Howlett, News Director
Contact Ken at ken@k105.com or 270-259-6000
