Where will the new Oklahoma County jail be built? Committee narrows list of locations to four
A citizens oversight board helping to select a future location for Oklahoma County's jail trimmed another two locations from consideration Tuesday after hearing from a dozen area residents who expressed concerns about where it might be built.
After meeting in executive session for about 50 minutes, five members of the Oklahoma County Citizens Bond Oversight Advisory Board recommended county commissioners eliminate a 53-acre site at 6945 S Post Road and a 45-acre site on Interstate 40's south side just east of Douglas Boulevard from consideration.
If commissioners approve, the consideration of future possible locations for the jail will be limited to two Oklahoma City-owned properties near Will Rogers World Airport, the existing location of the Oklahoma County jail downtown, and a 71-acre property located at 1901 E Grand Blvd., offered for sale by Willowbrook Investments LLC and Garrett & Company Resources LLC.
One location in consideration less than a mile from elementary school, sparking concern from public
Of those four locations, the one that received the most feedback from concerned citizens Tuesday was the Grand Boulevard location.
Rick Cobb, superintendent of Midwest City-Del City Public Schools, expressed concerns the Grand Boulevard location is less than a mile from the campus of Crooked Oak Schools.
"While it is technically outside of our district, it is 1.2 miles away from one of our largest elementary schools where we have more than 600 students. Most of those students are walkers who walk to homes within about a quarter mile of that location. I think you can see why that's really not a good idea," Cobb said.
Resident Walter Jacques told oversight board members the Grand Boulevard location also would put the jail close to Trosper Park.
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"It is within a half mile to a lot of residences and a lot of small kids, and the south Grand trail is really one of the highlights of the MAPS bicycle trails, so there would be a lot of people bicycling, walking and skating past that location on south Grand."
Elaine Winterink and Szofia Nickell told oversight board members the Grand site troubled them because it would be less than two miles away from the $400 million OKANA project being built by the Chickasaw Nation on the Oklahoma River, just west of Eastern Avenue.
"It is really close," Winterink said.
Design process advancing along with site selection, board told
Oversight board members were told by Curt Pardee, a principal with design firm HOK, that meetings have continued between his designers and the detention center's staff to evaluate space needs for the jail and its accompanying behavioral health facility.
"We also have been looking at the jail's population and how that may be impacted in the future. We are using all of that information to help us determine how large the new facility needs to be," Pardee said.
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Hopes are that space needs will be finalized before the end of October, with that information subsequently helping HOK design a basic floor plan for the new facility.
"As we wrap up the space needs analysis, we also are going to be looking at a detailed staffing analysis for the new facility. When you determine the number of beds and you look at the number of posts that we are going to have, you can start to figure out how many detention officers it will take to manage it," Pardee said, adding he hoped that also would be completed in about a month.
Stacey Trumbo, Oklahoma County's engineer, asked for and received commitments from several oversight board members to join an evaluation team that will recommend a contractor to build the jail.
Proposals from contractors will be opened in mid-October.
"There's a lot of work to be done to select the right contractor for this project," Trumbo said.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Possible sites for new Oklahoma County jail narrowed to four options
