Lockdown

Joint venture builds White County facility with security in mind

By Chip Taulbee

Security and durability trump other features of the $15 million White County Correctional Facility in Searcy, Ark., even if at times they cost a bit more than other options.

SouthBuild of Memphis - a joint venture between Tennessee companies Spirit Architecture of Memphis, Smith-Doyle Contractors of Cordova and Henson Construction Services Inc. of Jackson - is the contractor for the project and no stranger to this type of work.

The three companies have some 30 rural detention facilities throughout the Southeast and Plains states under their belts already.

Work began on the White County project's 17-acre site in November 2004 and is scheduled to be complete in September. County officials are eager to settle into their new building after their previous offices were riddled for years with electrical and plumbing problems.

Jail administrator Capt. Thomas Ligon said, "It's something we can work with instead of work on."

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There are two connected parts of the 92,728-sq.-ft. building. The larger portion, a single-story, rectangular section at the building's front, dedicates 63,000 sq. ft. to circuit and district courtrooms, the White County Sheriff's office, probation and clerks offices, kitchen and laundry facilities, and minimum security housing, such as booking intake, holding and medical cells.

Steve Littleton of Spirit Architecture said, "We had a good opportunity to join a lot of functions in this building."

For criminals with lengthier reservations, the second part of the building is a two-story, 326-bed housing pod for male and female inmates. The octagonal structure is divided into eight wedges to separate seven cell blocks and an outdoor exercise yard.

"When you look at the facility it's basically a precast exterior wall panel with a mixture of masonry on the outside," project manager Don Abernathy said.

The housing pod's exterior walls are made of precast concrete panels, fabricated in Conway by Coreslab Structures Inc. The typical panel is 12 ft. wide and 26 ft. tall. They were also used to divide the cell blocks.

"They pour those one day and the next day they have to be cured enough to be lifted with a crane," Abernathy said. "They cure to more than 4,000 psi overnight, whereas you typically don't get your 4,000 psi strength for 28 days."

The panels were chosen not only for their strength and durability but also for their minimal upkeep.

"We tried to minimize the amount of exterior walls that need to be painted," Abernathy said. "They've got a sandblast finish on them that's attractive and that eliminates long-term maintenance such as painting.

"We try to look for things like that that's not just a cost savings today but is also in the owner's best interest in the long term."

Littleton said the panels also speed up the construction process.

"Once you get the walls up it seems like just a few weeks before you're getting a roof on it," he added. "In turn, it saves money for the owner."

The panels have a limestone aggregate that will give the buildings a roughened gray color. Littleton said the concrete also gives that part of the facility an oppressive look that boasts strength and solidity - appropriate attributes for a prison.

The front portion of the building will also include some of the precast panels but will be accented with glazed tile blocks and painted split faced blocks around the court area and sheriff's office.

The architects were also able to incorporate some of an existing building, a former John Deere dealership that covered some 18,000 sq. ft., into the front of the facility.

"We demolished everything down to the ridged framed and slab of what was there and utilized part of that as part of the sheriff's offices," Abernathy said.

The courtrooms, which split about 50,000 sq. ft. of the building's space, are dressed up with judges benches, jury boxes and witness stands made of stained maple wood and plastic laminate.

The architectural features inside the housing unit, however, are "plain Jane," Abernathy said.

The cells, mostly 7 ft. wide and 13 ft. deep, are divided by concrete block walls. Larger open dorm areas also house some of the less hardened criminals.

"Those are what we call security walls, where we've re-barred every cell of the block wall and they're grouted solid," Littleton said. "If for whatever reason they were able to chip away the wall, they wouldn't be able to get through because of the rebar."

A bar joist metal deck is topped with modified bitumen, or "torch-down" roofing, which is rolled on then torched at the seams. Abernathy said that while that kind of tar roofing is a bit more expensive than its mopped-on counterpart, the bitumen will prove a more resilient covering.

The cell doors are security hollow metal swinging doors.

"It's a heavy duty, 10-gauge metal steel, whereas a commercial door probably would be a 14-, 16-gauge," Abernathy said.

Naturally, all the windows are made of bullet-proof glass, which range in thickness from 7/16 to 1.75 in. thick.

The detention contractor, Cornerstone Detention Products Inc. of Huntsville, made the doors, bunks and dayroom tables. They also installed the 130 cameras and other monitoring equipment throughout the facility used to keep an eye on the inmates.

The video is fed back to a two-story control room in the center of the octagonal-shaped building. With a view 10 ft. off the ground floor and 360-degree viewing, prison security can monitor all of the inmates from that one room. And film covers the control room's 6- and 8-ft. windows so prisoners cannot look in.

Though criminals and county officials will share the same building they won't share the same space. Sally ports are used on all the entrances and exits of the housing pod.

"Think of them as airlocks," Littleton said. "Only one door can be open at one time."

So the prisoners have nowhere to go but where they're told.