Spokane-based Lydig Construction Inc. has landed a $91 million contract for a jail-expansion project in Southern California that will nearly triple the inmate capacity of the facility there.

The Adelanto Detention Center expansion project will involve constructing a single-story, masonry-block, jail-support building and three two-story concrete buildings that will add a total of 1,368 inmate beds to the roughly 700-bed corrections complex, says Bill Dobyns, project executive at Lydig's Bellevue office.

Richard Condrey and Kevin McCarry, of Lydig's Spokane office, are the project managers, Dobyns says.

Work will begin Jan. 31 at the project site in California's high desert, about 85 miles northeast of Los Angeles, Dobyns says. The project, which was designed by St. Louis, Mo.-based architectural firm HOK, is scheduled to be completed in July 2013, he says.

Each of the inmate-housing buildings will have 86,500 square feet of floor space, Dobyns says. The 30,000-square-foot inmate support building will house booking, transfer and release, medical and dental, food and beverage, and delivery services.

In addition to the buildings, the project will include site work and construction of secure transport and parking facilities. It also will involve renovating the jail's kitchen, laundry facilities, visitation area, and medical offices, Dobyns says.

The Adelanto facility, which opened in 2006, is one of four detention facilities operated by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. The Adelanto addition is the first detention-facility project to be funded through a 2007 California initiative to reduce prison overcrowding, Dobyns says.

Lydig was one of six general contractors that submitted bids for the project, and Lydig's bid came in $24 million below the San Bernardino County engineer's estimate of $115 million, the company says.

The Adelanto expansion, which is Lydig's largest current project, adds to Lydig's portfolio of corrections-related work, while expanding the company's market reach beyond the Pacific Northwest, Dobyns says.

In Western Washington, Lydig is the general contractor on the $56 million South Correctional Entity, an 813-bed jail under construction in Des Moines, Wash. That jail will house inmates charged with or convicted of misdemeanors in seven south King County cities. It's scheduled to open next September.

In 2009, the contractor worked with Integrus Architecture PS, of Spokane, on a $38 million design-build project that included a 104,000-square-foot expansion of the Northwest Detention Center, in Tacoma. The project added 575 beds to that facility, to bring its total inmate capacity to 1,575 inmates.

Also, Lydig, in partnership with Hunt Construction Group, of Phoenix, built the $190 million Coyote Ridge Correction Center expansion in Connell, Wash., which opened in 2008, adding 1,782 medium-security beds and 600 minimum-security beds in 23 buildings with a total of 520,000 square feet of floor space.