Blaine County Sheriff Walt Femling's 17-year effort to build a new jail took a step forward Tuesday night, when the Hailey Planning and Zoning Commission passed a design review of the new facility.
The new public safety facility is scheduled to open by fall 2008. Construction is set to begin in spring.
Since the location for the new jail is within Hailey city limits in the Airport West light-industrial park, the city needed to approve the design and planned uses of the building, which required slight alterations from plans submitted a year and a half year ago by Boise-based Lombard Conrad Architects. Glass blocking, wrought-iron fencing and green-colored horizontal lines were added to the original plans in order to spruce up the building's exterior walls.
P&Z Commissioner Michael Pogue commented on the "rather stark" appearance" of the structure, perhaps due to the removal of faux-windows from last year's designs, which were abandoned in favor of offset wall sections and horizontal line features.
Commissioner Owen Scanlon advised making changes to roof lines and shoring up structural columns for a covered emergency vehicle parking area. At the suggestion of the city's planning staff, the jail's secured inmate area will be seeded with drought-tolerant grasses to abide by city ordinances requiring that 50 percent of public landscaping be "xeriscaped" to save water.
The new public safety facility is estimated to cost about $13 million and will house a new sheriff's office, consolidated dispatch center, and will include 44 beds for regular inmates and 20 beds for inmates in the county's work-release program. The existing jail in central Hailey, which Femling said is typically filled to capacity, has only 27 beds.
The designs presented Tuesday evening were approved after architects agreed to address minor changes to drainage systems, structural support columns, and visual screening to conceal generators, transformers, and other mechanical equipment from view.
Seventy-six percent of Blaine County voters lent their approval on Feb. 6 to issuing $10.46 million in bonds to fund the new jail.
Of the approximately 1,400 people who turned out at the polls, 1,056 voted in favor of the bond issue and 337 voted against it.
"I'm overwhelmed by the margin that the voters passed it by," said Blaine County Commissioner Tom Bowman following the election. "(Sheriff) Walt Femling pointed out to me that the school bonds don't even pass by that type of margin. I have a lot of gratitude to all the people who worked on this, and I'm humbled by the voters' confidence in us."
Plans for a new county jail in Hailey were approved by the city Planning and Zoning Commission Tuesday. Courtesy Graphic.
