BY THE NUMBERSBledsoe County Correctional Complex• $208 million: Total project cost• 450: Estimated new jobs• 300: Minimum-security beds• 1,024: Medium-security beds• 120: Maximum-security beds• 1,444: Total bedsSource: Tennessee Department of Correction
PIKEVILLE, Tenn. – Like a giant Lego project, the $208 million Bledsoe County Correctional Complex is taking shape as rows of massive gray housing units are configured from stacked, precast cells built on the prison grounds.
The 1,444-bed state prison going up on Horsehead Road should get its first tenants in January 2013, Warden Jim Morrow said Thursday.
It sits on 2,200 acres of the Cumberland Plateau along with the 971-bed Southeastern Tennessee State Regional Correctional Facility and Taft Youth Center.
The new prison will house mostly medium-security prisoners, with a few hundred minimum- and maximum-security inmates, Morrow said. It employs some of the latest prison design features, he said, including a pair of tunnels that are the only entrance and exit for the 431,000-square-foot facility.