Capital plan includes major funding for Richmond jail

By: Will Jones | Times-Dispatch
Published: March 27, 2009

Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones is tackling one of the city's most nagging and expensive building needs: the Richmond City Jail.

Calling the current conditions unconscionable, Jones is proposing to spend $2.3 million next year and $138.4 million over five years to overhaul the overcrowded, outdated jail through a series of expansion, improvement and demolition projects to be completed around 2013.

"We can't allow, in a human society, for the conditions to exist as they exist at the Richmond City Jail," he said.

Yesterday, Jones released his five-year capital improvement plan, which for the first time includes major funding for the jail on Oliver Hill Way in the East End. The facility was built in the 1960s and has 862 inmate beds but routinely holds 1,400 to 1,600.

The $138.4 million for the jail represents more than one-third of the entire $401.9 million capital spending plan, excluding utilities projects. By comparison, $149.5 million is proposed for schools.

"Is there a priority problem here?" Planning Commissioner and former Richmond School Board Chairman Melvin Law asked during a briefing on the capital plan.

Administration officials responded that schools have been and will continue to receive significant funding, while the jail's needs represent a single, long-neglected project.

"We have to address that. Unfortunately, that's something we have to do," Budget Director Rayford L. Harris Jr. said.

City Council President Kathy C. Graziano agreed but said she wished the city had regional partners for the project.

"We need to be realistic. We need to have a new jail," she said. "We have too many people in it. We need to replace it."

Jones said the city will continue to pursue regional partners as well as state funding. However, the plan has been crafted as a worst-case scenario that assumes only city support. The $2.3 million proposed to be spent next year would cover programmatic, architectural and engineering work.

"At this point, you have a volatile, explosive situation that has to be corrected, so you can't ignore it," Jones said.

Details such as the number of beds remain under discussion, but one scenario could include about 1,000 beds with more that could be added through double-bunking, said John Winter, chief capital projects manager.

He said the city will be looking strongly at alternative programs to deal with nonviolent offenders, mental-health patients and others who routinely end up being housed at the jail but may not need to be.

Under Jones' capital plan, the city would spend $67.5 million on nonutility projects next year, including:

$5.4 million to make schools accessible for disabled students;

$18.5 million for the planning and initial construction or renovation of school facilities;

$3.6 million to start implementing the Downtown Master Plan, including the conversion of streets to two-way traffic, a riverfront design study and the acquisition of open space; and

$15.8 million for improvements to roads, bridges, streetlights, sidewalks and curb ramps.

The plan also would set aside money next year for maintenance and improvements to various city buildings and facilities. Money would go to parks, as well as to a new financial computer system and a new boiler for the John Marshall Courts Building.

In addition, City Hall would get upgraded sprinkler and heating and air-conditioning systems, a new fire-alarm system and improved piping for mechanical and plumbing systems.

The plan proposes to spend $66.5 million in 2010-11 before gradually increasing outlays in subsequent years. Of the total, $388.1 million in projects would be funded with debt and $13.8 million with other sources.

Contact Will Jones at (804) 649-6911 or wjones@timesdispatch.com.