After over two years of delays, the Monroe County Council on Tuesday approved the $11.375 million purchase of property for a new justice complex, including a new county jail and court space. The council approved the purchase in a 5-1 vote.
According to the agenda from the Nov. 12 meeting, the 52-acre property is between Ellettsville and Bloomington in North Park, at the northwest corner of I‐69 and State Road 46, and will sit up against Hunter Valley Road.
County Attorney Jeff Cockerill said Tuesday the court space will sit closest to the road and “the jail would be more tucked away.”
The Monroe County Commissioners approved the purchase agreement Oct. 23.
The 400-bed jail will require between $400,000 and $800,000 for shared costs of a roadway, and between $2.5 million and $3 million for the expansion of the wastewater treatment plant needed to support the jail.
A study conducted by the RQAW Corporation in April projected that the new jail will cost taxpayers between $90 million and $106 million.
The hard construction costs for the new jail are estimated to cost about $80.9 million. According to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, the justice center, which will be about 50% bigger than the old one, is estimated to have hard construction costs of about $78.7 million.
The justice center will include courtrooms, the county’s public defender office, the part of the clerk’s office that relates to the courts, the county’s prosecutor’s office and other related offices.
After construction of this facility is completed, Cockerill said, the intention is to move all previous justice related facilities to the new property. At this time, Cockerill said, no decisions have been made about what will happen to the buildings currently being used for the county jail, courts and other related facilities.
In 2020, Monroe County released a “Criminal Justice & Incarceration Study” that stated the jail residing at 301 N. College Ave. was “incapable” of providing adequate inmate care and had “far exceeded its structural and functional life cycle, despite all its renovations.”
Some local advocates, including Care not Cages, an anti-incarceration group advocating against construction of a new jail, want to use the money that would be used for the justice complex to fund supportive housing that is available to people with low income, transportation and substance abuse treatment.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed a lawsuit against Monroe County in 2008 due to the conditions for inmates in the jail. Much of the issue was due to overcrowding, which caused fights over sleeping spaces to break out and forced inmates to sleep on the floor.
Monroe County Sherrif Ruben Marté said in a presentation to the Monroe County Council and Commissioners on July 11 he is worried overcrowding will lead to violence.
“The potential is there,” he said. “When you have overcrowding and you have no space, tempers flare up,” he said.
The RQAW Corporation study stated that the jail has an operation capacity of 258 beds and made the recommendation for the county to provide between 450 and 500 beds to adequately provide for the number of inmates.
At the meeting, several residents expressed opposition to the new facility. Bloomington resident Joe Davis, representing a group of taxpayer petitioners, said they “strongly dissuade the purchase of this property,” suggesting the city utilize property that it already owns. Davis said purchasing the North Park property opens a “pandora’s box of spending taxpayer’s money.”
Council Member Marty Hawk was the one opposing vote to the decision due to the impact the jail will have on the people of Ellettsville. According to the Ellettsville Chamber of Commerce, there are concerns about the new jail will influence the future economic development of the town, because they think the North Park location has potential to be “incredibly valuable.”
According to Cockerill, there is a 30-month construction cycle for the jail, meaning 2.5 years to figure out how to use the downtown buildings that will be made vacant by the move to the North Park location.
It is unclear when construction for the new justice complex will begin.
In the Nov. 12 meeting, Cockerill said that they had not yet finished designing the facilities for the North Park location.
