Gunnison residents warm up to jail design in their neighborhood

“Condominium character”

Sketches of how Gunnison County’s new jail is going to look in its partly residential setting show the building clad in gabled roofs with dormers, a clear story for natural light, a stylish Hardie-panel  exterior and a modest 22,000-square-foot footprint. And at a design presentation on Tuesday, May 4, the county’s newest neighbors weren’t complaining.

Design and construction of the new detention center is moving at a brisk pace, with plans calling for a groundbreaking on the site at the corner of Bidwell Avenue and 14th Street in Gunnison as soon as September.
So the Board of County Commissioners was asked to make a decision about whether the building should be oriented north and south, or east and west. But, as it was presented, there wasn’t much else for the commissioners to do, other than follow along and wait for the cost estimates to come in.
“Because of something that we uncovered we actually moved quickly into design. Issues in terms of how the project affected the neighborhood, concerns of the citizens and the Cattlemen’s Association, AECOM designer Andy Cupples told the board. “We’re going to show you some ideas of how we’re going to treat the architecture, but we’re not quite there yet.”
The programming—who does what inside the jail—that Cupples and his team have come up with has largely been the product of studies the county has commissioned on the workings of a jail to meet the needs of the local population.
And the programming plan so far is pretty thorough, with most of the details of everyday life for inmates, and officers, getting worked out on poster boards: how people will be checked into the jail, how their belongings will be kept safe, where they will talk to an attorney and how the daily rhythm of sleep, food and exercise will run.
Having the added space in the new facility has given the sheriff’s office opportunities they don’t have now in the jail, which has led to a lot of emphasis being put on the daily operation that Cupples says is standard in any new jail construction.
Good layout, he says, can keep staffing requirements close to where they are now, while keeping all of the officers and inmates safe.
A new jail could increase capacity from the current absolute maximum of 40 inmates to around 52, with the option to add enough beds to accommodate 78. Undersheriff Rick Besecker thinks the sheriff’s office will be able to make the switch with only one or two more jailers on duty, if any additional deputies are needed at all. But that remains to be seen.
It’s the design and programming, Cupples says, that make it possible to keep the costs of manning the facility down; moving the sheriff’s administration into the new facility makes officers who aren’t dedicated to the jail available for transport and other times extra officers are needed.
“We’re treating this not as a jail, but as a public safety center,” Cupples said. So in addition to the sheriff’s offices, the new facility plan is being drawn up to hold an emergency operations center that will be the hub of information during a crisis. It will also house the county’s communication center, for dispatchers and the 911 call center.
Putting more public safety services under one roof will make communication easier and keep staffing numbers down, but it will also require a bigger roof. Right now the designers are settling on a building footprint of about 22,000 square feet, with a full second story and mezzanine space.
“All in all the program estimate is that we would be at about 52,000 square feet. We think we’ve been able to squeeze this down to where we’re at 42,000 to 43,000 [square feet],” Cupples said. “That includes all of the potential options—that’s for the whole complex.”
And in past public meetings, the size of the building has raised some concerns about appearance, traffic flow around the facility and where the building will be placed on the property.
After hearing those concerns two siting options were drawn up: one with the jail sitting on the south end of the lot, closer to the fairgrounds, and the other orienting the building north and south so all of the traffic wraps around to the side of the jail, away from most of the surrounding neighborhood.
The jail housing itself will be built inside a more appealing and palatable shell for the sake of the neighbors, some of whom have been uneasy with the thought of a jail going in next door and hope their property value doesn’t take the hit.
Cupples told the half-dozen residents of the area that the intent is to separate the interior of the building—the cells and heavy construction—from the shell. Not only will that kind of design allow construction to move through the cold winter months, but it will also conceal the true look of the jail.
But with uncertainty about a future need to expand the jail and a current requirement to include as many as 100 parking spots in the plan, if they had a preference, the neighbors tended to favor the option that would put the jail closest to their houses, knowing that it would look nice and never be turned into a parking lot.
Neighbor Kathy Pagano liked the north-south orientation because “We know what’s there and what it’s going to look like. You don’t know what’s going to happen in the future… and if there’s going to be a modular in that space in 20 or 30 years. The unknown is more scary than knowing.”
“They’re two great options, I think,” Mary Burt said. “My biggest concern was the entrance, so now that it’s going to be all off Bidwell, I couldn’t pick one or the other right now.”
But commissioner Paula Swenson did favor one over the other and she liked option A, with the building oriented north and south on the lot, and the others seemed to agree. Now the jail planning will focus on cost, which will determine how much of the programming can stay and how much will have to wait for another day.