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British stone. CLOUD – Stearns County officials recently hired a Minnesota firm to manage construction of its planned justice center, agreeing in December to pay $4 million to hire the architect.
But officials haven’t decided where it will be or even how many buildings it will have. Officials also don’t know how much it will ultimately cost or how it will be paid for, although the county hopes voters will come forward and approve the ballot question this November.
“The board really has to make a decision in the next few months,” County Administrator Mike Williams said. “We want to be able to tell the community what we’re going to build and where.”
Last spring, the Legislature authorized the county to ask voters to approve a new three-eighths sales tax that would raise up to $325 million for new jails, sheriff’s offices and courthouses.
The so-called justice center could be built on undeveloped land downtown or elsewhere in the city, or the facilities could be spread across two sites. Williams said a cost breakdown for each option should help commissioners make their decision.
Officials and commissioners met with advisers in mid-February and plan to meet again in mid-March; they must approve the ballot language in July.
County leaders know that the current downtown jail is cramped and has reached the end of its useful life in more than a decade. But hefty replacement cost estimates and hesitation over location prompted leaders to spend $5 million on temporary fixes, buying them time to plan for a long-term solution.
“We need to come up with something that the public can support,” Williams said. “I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that this is going to be an expensive project. Even though it will hopefully be paid for through sales tax, that doesn’t mean we’re going to build something we don’t need.”
The jail’s inmate population continues to exceed capacity, forcing the county to pay for inmates at other facilities, a costly and ineffective practice, Williams said.
“At some point, the Department of Corrections may tell us that our facilities are obsolete. [that] They could take away our license to operate,” Williams said.
Officials are considering building a single-story prison because it would reduce operating costs. But building it downtown on the current prison site would require more space, including on a nearby block that houses Howie’s Sports Bar & Grill and the U.S. Post Office. This requires more time and money than building on a new, undeveloped site.
“If we were downtown, we would eat up a few properties,” Williams said.
St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis, who has been leading a campaign to revitalize downtown, is not a fan of this approach. He recently said he did not want the county to deduct significant property from its tax role and advocated for the county to keep the court facilities and administrative building downtown and build a new jail at another site.
“Prisons don’t bring any vitality to downtown,” Kress said.
But other officials believe the facilities should not be separated. “We need jails. It’s critical to our court system and all our judges,” Stearns County Judge Sarah Hennessey, chief judge of the 7th Judicial District, said at the mid-February meeting. .
Hennessy said the county currently has enough judges to handle cases, but as the population continues to grow, more judges will be needed.
“If you don’t give me a building to house these judges, the state is not going to give me these judges,” she said.
Stearns County Judge Andrew Pearson expressed concerns about the safety of judges, attorneys and other staff in the current facility, which has an outdated design that does not allow for separate entrances, hallways and parking spaces for staff.
“My life has been threatened multiple times a year – multiple times – and I have no safe way to get to my car. Period,” Pearson said. “They know where you park your car. They know where your court is. They know you have to walk past them.”
Consultants estimate that splitting the facility would cost the county at least $27 million in new operating costs over 30 years, which would be paid for through property taxes. Williams said the construction cost of the new facility could be paid for entirely with sales taxes, which would help reduce the tax burden on property owners, with an estimated half of the tax revenue coming from people living outside the community.
If the facilities are moved from downtown, officials will need to determine how to repurpose the space. Williams said a previous analysis recommended demolishing the existing Sheriff’s Office and courthouse facilities, building on them and selling the land. That doesn’t include the historic courthouse, which just celebrated its 100th anniversary.
Once commissioners finalize the plans — hopefully in May — they will begin a campaign to educate residents about the project and its different funding options.
“The five of us are the only ones with the right to vote on the property tax, so we give [residents] “This is an opportunity to promote this issue more broadly,” Board President Tarryl Clark said of the proposed sales tax. “No matter how we raise the issue, they need to know this is something that needs to be done.”
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