News

Commissioners greenlight $79 million jail expansion

Board of Commissioners Chair Bill Lapsley makes a comment as commissioners Rebecca McCall and Michael Edney study figures before voting in favor of a $79 million expansion of the county detention center.

By Bill Moss, Published: August 5, 2025

Henderson County commissioners gave the green light on Monday to construction of a $79 million jail expansion in a move that likely portends the go-ahead for the full $171 million justice center.

The jail, after all, is designed with its own secure connection to the proposed four-story courthouse via a “secure above-ground tunnel.” Plus, the county has spent millions of dollars over the past five years on space needs studies, design, engineering, cost projections and contractor recruitment for the Judicial Center Addition & Renovation — or JCAR — and commissioners are now expected to have the courthouse expansion vote on their docket in October.

On Monday night the board voted unanimously to OK a contract for the jail addition construction at a guaranteed maximum price of $64,356,271. Counting soft costs — including furniture, fixtures and equipment, design and engineering fees and contingencies — the total comes to $77,991,527. Adding the courthouse cost of $92.95 million brings the justice center total to $171 million.

“This board will remember there was a point in history where the total estimated construction cost of the project was at $175 million, putting the whole project at about $210 million at that moment,” Assistant County Manager Christopher Todd said.

Cost cuts: inmate beds, fifth floor, major reno

County commissioners, staff and the construction management team found the savings by cutting the number of male inmate beds by half, deleting a fifth floor of the courthouse and scuttling a major renovation of the existing 1995 courthouse.

The project includes an expanded parking lot into what’s currently the sheriff’s impound lot plus a staff parking area behind the new courthouse tower.

After the two newly elected commissioners grumbled about the cost in a meeting on July 16, county staff and the construction managers — a team made up of Hendersonville-based Cooper Construction and the Haskell Co., a global design-engineering-construction firm — trimmed costs again.

“Haskell-Cooper has spent hours and hours and hours going through this project and looking at the overall phasing plan of how they intend to do this,” Todd said. “When you’re doing construction within a live and operating detention center, safety has to be at the forefront of everything you’re doing. Everybody needs to be safe, and the people that are supposed to go home at night go home, and those that aren’t stay there.”

John Albro, senior project director at the Haskell Co., described the steps construction managers had taken to arrive at the guaranteed maximum price (GMP).

“We’ve conducted over the years multiple subcontractor outreach events in Hendersonville,” he said. “We’ve conducted several site visits (at the jail), coordinating with the sheriff’s staff, to ensure that subcontractors are seeing existing conditions and have a solid understanding of the implications of maintaining an operational detention facility.”

Next, the construction team distributed RFPs to more than 500 vendors and subcontractors and “went through a robust prequalification process to ensure that we’re in compliance with North Carolina statutes as well as the county procurement annual,” he said. “We then prepared 30 bid packages. We received proposals and vetted them through a series of robust qualification interviews and scope meetings to make sure that the scopes were complete and we had responsible, responsive subcontractor numbers.”

Once the county commits to a GMP, it expects to get a finished product at that price or less, County Manager John Mitchell said.

“This is a completed building,” he said. “There’s toilet paper in the toilet paper rolls. This is an ‘all in’ — furniture, fixtures, equipment on Day 1.”

In the coming weeks, possibly as early as their Oct. 6 meeting, commissioners will see the first GMP for the four-story courthouse tower, Todd said.

Commissioner Jay Egolf, who along with new commissioner Sheila Franklin had expressed misgivings about the cost last month, ended up endorsing the jail addition.

“When I was running for this position, I was told to tour the detention center, and I did,” he said. “Some improvements are necessary. They were needed then, I’m sure they’re needed now. … The general public can tour this detention center. If anyone in the public thinks that this is wasted money and this is not necessary, go on a tour.”

“I’m still disappointed” in the cost, Franklin said, “but I yield to the engineers and have the utmost respect for the eight years that I hear that it’s been in process, so I don’t belittle that one bit.”

Board Chair Bill Lapsley, a retired civil engineer, pointed out the unusual challenges involved in building a facility designed to keep accused and convicted criminals confined.

“This is a special type building and construction,” he said. “This is not a block and brick with a shingle roof situation. This is high technology. This is reinforced, secured” with features “that are reflected in the price, quite frankly. We just don’t build this type of building every other month, whether it’s in Henderson County or anywhere else. This is a rare expenditure.”