Spokane Countys jail-planning consultant has narrowed the list of potential locations for a new county jail facility to three preferred sites. One site is located just north of the current jail, another is on the West Plains, and the third is in Spokane Valley.


The consultant, Integrus Architecture PS, of Spokane, will present its recommendations to the County Commission on April 15, and the panel will have two weeks to make a final site selection, says sheriffs Lt. Mike Sparber, the project manager for the proposed jail project.


The West Plains site would be on 44 acres of undeveloped land on state Route 902, north of Interstate 90 and near the Medical Lake interchange. The estimated value of that property, which is owned by Sam Lee, of Spokane, is $176,000 to $220,000, Sparber says.


The site near the jail consists of 2 acres of land the county already owns.


Integrus is confident that a site there could handle the needs for the county for 25 years, Sparber says.


He says a jail expansion at that location would have to be built as a multi-story tower, which would add to the construction cost, compared with a single-story facility.


The Spokane Valley location is a 45-acre, county-owned site east of Spokane Industrial Park, along Tschirley Road, north of Euclid Avenue. The Tschirley Road site, which is owned by the countys road department, currently holds an estimated 1.8 million cubic yards of unmined gravel valued at $9 million, says Don Coon, the countys architect.


Were the county to choose the Tschirley site, which was bought for its gravel content, it would have to decide whether to replace that gravel site with another similar site or to build a multistory facility there that still would leave space to extract the gravel, Coon says.


Integrus still is working on construction and operational cost estimates for the proposed jail facilities, Coon says. The cost estimates, along with an initial design, should be done in June, he says.


The county is planning to put a measure before voters in November to fund a jail upgrade, Sparber says.


The countys main jail facility, which is north of the County Courthouse, holds up to 675 medium- to high-security inmates. The minimum-security Geiger Corrections Center, which houses about 470 inmates, is located at 3507 Spotted Road, in the Spokane International Airport Business Park. Both are operated by the sheriffs department.


The countys lease of the Geiger facility will expire in 2013. Spokane International Airport, which owns that property, has notified the county that it doesnt intend to renew the lease.


The new or expanded jail facility will need to handle the loss of the Geiger facility, plus overall inmate growth for 25 years, Sparber says.


The county projects that it will need facilities to house 2,033 inmates by the year 2035. Of those, the current jail facility would house 462 inmates and about 1,700 inmates in a new or expanded facility. Up to 300 inmates would be handled through a proposed community corrections center that would be intended to replace the Gieger facility and would include work-release, work-crew, and home-monitoring programs.


Contact Mike McLean at (509) 344-1266 or via e-mail at mikem@spokanejournal.com.