PIKEVILLE, Tenn. — State officials awarded a design contract and added $20 million to utility work for a 1,444-bed prison planned at its corrections complex in Bledsoe County.
The state hasn’t agreed on the design price with Orlando, Fla.-based DLR Group, but more money was earmarked for supplying the new prison with water, sewer and electricity, said Dorinda Carter, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Correction.
Estimates for utility work stood at $20 million before the project was ordered reevaluated in 2005. The state doubled the funding to cover inflation and increased cost of materials, Ms. Carter said.
The biggest part of the utility project is the water line that will run from the Tennessee River in Rhea County across the Sequatchie Valley to the prison, she said. The $40 million also will cover easement purchases, design, tests and other costs.
“The scope of the project ... and the mission of the prison remain the same,” she said.
Site work could start late this year, Ms. Carter said.
The original plan called for a $144 million expansion of the existing Southeastern Tennessee State Regional Correctional Facility. But a $378,000 review ordered in November, 2005 and completed last year called for a new, stand-alone facility next door to the present prison.
State officials said the switch could save up $22 million on the original price tag. A review of the prison expansion in Morgan County saved $12 million by changing the project’s scope, officials said.
Officials in Bledsoe County say the community is desperate for the 200 jobs the new prison will create.
Bob McKee, executive director of the Select Oversight Committee on Corrections, said he’s satisfied with progress.
“It’s kind of gotten off schedule a little bit but that happens sometimes,” Mr. McKee said. “It’s just things that you run into on a project that size.”
Mr. McKee said there will be no change in the scope of the project unless design work reveals a reason. Projected population growth in Tennessee prisons shows a need for space, he said.
Ben Benton is a news reporter at the Chattanooga Times Free Press. He covers Southeast Tennessee and previously covered North Georgia education. Ben has worked at the Times Free Press since November 2005, first covering Bledsoe and Sequatchie counties and later adding Marion, Grundy and other counties in the northern and western edges of the region to his coverage. He was born and raised in Cleveland, Tenn., a graduate of Bradley Central High School. Benton ...
