$4 million project begins at county's old jail

The cost of renovating and expanding Flathead County’s historic old jail building has climbed to nearly $4 million as construction begins in tandem with ongoing environmental cleanup.

The county commissioners last week approved a $3.38 million contract with Martel Construction of Bigfork, but architectural fees, permit fees and a contingency set-aside bring the total cost to $3,996,975.

Plans for restoring the 1903 brick building just south of the main Courthouse in Kalispell have been in the works for a couple of years. Initially the county estimated a $1.5 million upgrade to relocate the County Attorney offices to the old jail.

The old jail hasn’t housed prisoners for decades but has been used for storage of janitorial supplies and miscellaneous equipment. The project has changed considerably since the preliminary projections were done, largely because the attic and much of the basement aren’t usable office space, Flathead County Administrator Mike Pence said.

“That $1.5 million was assuming we could have just expanded within the confines of the old building,” Pence said. “We thought we could use the attic and we can’t use it at all. In the basement what we can use is limited.”

Pence said the roof angles in the attic, plus the required structural alterations of installing an elevator and stairway to the top of the building made that plan unworkable. In the basement portions of the floor are at different elevations, making renovation not feasible. Some basement space may be used for storage and other secondary space needs, though.

Since the juvenile detention center attached to the old jail uses some of the old jail space, Pence said it was always understood that providing more space for the juvenile detention center would go beyond the original $1.5 million capital improvement earmark.

A building addition is planned on the south and east sides of the juvenile detention center where the outdoor exercise area currently is located. The exercise area will be moved to the east, Pence said.

What emerged to solve the space challenge at the old jail is a three-story addition just to the east of the old jail.

“It will appear very much like the old jail. It’s a twin addition,” Pence said, “but it will literally be a separate building hooked on to the east. Panels of glass will connect the new to the old, and the brick will look very similar; the windows will have the same [historic] design.

“After we did more design we found out what our true needs were,” he said about the two building additions. “This is where the cost escalation came in.”

The estimated cost was ratcheted up to $2.85 million at one point during that process but was still an early projection, Pence said. The commissioners were aware of the higher cost projections in late January, he added.

The old jail project will be funded entirely with federal money the county receives from a long-running program that compensates local governments for nontaxable federal land. Last year Flathead County received $2.4 million through the Payments In Lieu of Taxes program and is on track to receive this year’s allocation in June.

“The only caveat, which relates to the South Campus Building and old jail financing, is in order to fully fund them with PILT we need the next payment in June 2016,” Pence said.

If the federal funding program is not renewed, the county’s backup plan is to reassign a portion of the money being set aside for a future expansion and upgrade of the adult detention center.

Last year the commissioners opted to reclaim some tax mills that weren’t levied during the recession and levy them in future years. The additional tax money will be levied over seven years and could generate close to $10 million.

“I’m pretty sure we’ll get PILT in June 2016, though,” Pence said.

Dipping into the county’s cash reserves for the building project is a possibility, “but that’s not our first go-to plan,” Pence said. Reassigning the adult detention set-aside within the capital improvement plan makes much better sense, he added.

The cost for the old jail project pencils out to $255 per square foot. That compares to $233 per square foot for the South Campus Building to be built this year next to the Earl Bennett Building on the county campus surrounding the Courthouse.

Commissioner Phil Mitchell said he spent time with CTA Architects Engineers and Martel Construction a week ago to go over the old jail project numbers.

“I’m comfortable with this, even though it’s $22 more a square foot” than the South Campus Building, Mitchell said.

If the renovation and additions had come in at $300 or $350 per square foot, Mitchell said it may have made the case for demolishing the old jail.

“I believe there are a number of people who like the character of the old building,” Mitchell said.

The Flathead County Courthouse and old jail building are part of the Courthouse Historic District — the 500 through 800 blocks of Main Street — listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Given that designation, Commissioner Gary Krueger said he doesn’t believe tearing down the old jail was an option.

“I don’t think the political will is there to level these older buildings,” Krueger said, adding that letting the old jail building disintegrate wasn’t an option, either. 

Flathead County spent $2.7 million to restore the main courthouse in 2011.

Regarding the cost projections for the old jail that increased from $1.5 million to nearly $4 million, Krueger said the earliest estimate was an in-house projection based on very preliminary information and was a target number used for the county’s capital improvement plan.

The county is using a $300,000 subgrant from a $1 million U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Brownfields Program revolving fund cleanup grant awarded to the city of Kalispell to remove asbestos and lead paint from the old jail. That environmental cleanup is about 60 percent complete, Pence said.

Martel Construction has started work at the site and will work alongside Abatement Contractors of Montana, a Missoula firm handling the hazardous materials removal.

The old jail complex will be completed by April 2016 if the project stays on schedule.

Space that is now used for the County Attorney offices on the second floor of the Justice Center will be refurbished.

“We’re trying to do this in-house with a $50,000 earmark for materials,” Pence said.

The alterations to the Justice Center space involve altering some walls. Once that’s completed, the District Clerk of Court office will use some of the space and Justice Court will expand into a portion of the extra area.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.