A new justice center complex topped the list of recommendations when Moseley Architects presented a space needs assessment at the Macon County Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday night.
The proposed 147,300-square-foot justice center complex would include a 60,800-square-foot court facility that would be home to a superior courtroom, three district court rooms, the district attorney’s office and the clerk of court’s office, as well as spaces for centralized holding, judge’s office suites and jury deliberation in order to streamline all court services.
The complex would also include a 19,500-square-foot law enforcement center to house the administrative, civil and investigative divisions of the Macon County Sheriff’s Office, plus a 67,000-square-foot detention center capable of housing up to 300 inmates.
Don Mace of Moseley Architects said replacing the county jail is the number-one priority of the needs assessment given the consistent overcrowding of the building and the generally abrasive nature of detention infrastructure.
“I always say that jail facilities age in dog years because they never close and the occupants are trying to tear it up,” Mace said. “There’s no other county building that takes the kind of abuse that a jail does.”
Mace also stressed that overcrowding was a real problem and that the current jail is unequipped to hold all locally housed inmates for any length of time in a way that meets state codes for safe detention.
Sheriff Robert Holland backed Mace up on that claim, saying that his department has had
to consider sending inmates as far away as Charlotte.
“We’ve actually had to look at shipping our inmates to Mecklenburg County because all of the jails in Western North Carolina are full,” he said.
The current detention center can house 75 inmates. When that limit is reached, additional inmates are shipped off to other facilities, Holland said.
The annual cost to the county runs well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“On a daily average, we have had about 25 inmates in other facilities over the last two years,” he said. “That’s 25 inmates at $50 per inmate. What that does not include is the [officers’] time, the gas, the wear and tear on vehicles.”
The other big priority in the assessment involved major renovations to the existing courthouse, courthouse annex and Southwestern Community College annex buildings, which would be altered to accommodate the county administration, finance, human relations, economic development, commissioner’s chambers, planning & permitting, environmental health, board of elections, mapping/GIS, register of deeds, tax and information technology departments.
Secondary priorities listed in the plan include renovations to the National Guard Armory, the Department of Health and Human Services and Macon County Senior Services, as well as new locations for the Nantahala Library and the emergency management department.
Moseley Architects did not consider Macon County Schools during this study.
County manager Derek Roland said the presentation does not represent the final plan, which will be delivered in the coming days. He also said that everything listed in the plan is non-binding and is only meant to give the commissioners perspective on what infrastructure concerns to focus on.
“This is a playbook, if you will, for our future space needs,” Roland told the commissioners. “It still remains up to you which plays out of the book you’re going to call.”
The final report from Moseley Architects is expected some time next week.