Thursday, May 2, 2024
A report on the condition of the aging Hood County Law Enforcement Center does not paint a pretty picture.
The price tag to fix it is even less attractive: $25.5 million to repair the most serious issues.
That figure does not include housing inmates elsewhere if county officials decide that completing the project as quickly as possible rather than phasing the work with inmates on site is the best course of action.
No decisions about the project have been made.
The Hood County Commissioners Court, which commissioned the study, recently heard a presentation about the LEC’s current state from Ryan Rosborough, vice president of professional management firm AG/CM’s Central Texas Region.
Built in 1995 on two acres, the single-story LEC contains offices and the Hood County Jail, which has a capacity for almost 200 inmates.
The facility is about 54,000 square feet, according to Rosborough, but its “roofline” is about 57,000 square feet. The roofline includes such things as covered porches and a maintenance shack.
On Aug. 11 and Aug. 18, company representatives made trips to the LEC with an “internal team” of experts. The experts inspected and graded various aspects of the building, including its foundation, plumbing, and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system.
Numerical scores ranged from 5 (excellent) to 1 (failing).
The completed checklist included eight scores of 1, 10 scores of 2 (poor), two scores that were between 1-2, and one score that was between 2-3 (fair).
Rosborough said that there are “major issues” with the building’s exterior walls, including cracking and “vapor transmission.”
He stated, “Inside, you feel humidity everywhere.”
Windows are “old and outdated,” he said, and are not energy efficient.
The parking lot has cracking and potholes, and some sidewalks are in “poor shape,” Rosborough said.
Other problems include leakage under the slab; roof drains that run through electrical and IT areas; exterior stairs that do not meet code; interior walls with moisture “everywhere, contributing to deterioration”; ceilings that are too low, posing hazards for inmates who might attempt to escape through them; plumbing that is “at the end of its life”; sewer gas inside the building; and HVAC units that are “not working as intended.”
Rosborough said it will take 10 months or more to create a design for the work and then two years to make the repairs, “but that would mean vacating the building entirely” rather than doing the work in phases with inmates on site.
Rosborough said that he “didn’t know where to begin” to estimate the cost of housing the county’s inmates at another location.
County Judge Ron Massingill said of the report, “Unfortunately, this is what all of us kind of suspected.”
He thanked Rosborough for his company’s “very thorough work” and said, “We’ll study this and get back to you. This is certainly not the end, it’s just the beginning.”
Massingill later told the Hood County News, “We’re going to have to do something. That jail, it can’t last.”
He noted “the bond climate right now in this community,” a reference to two Granbury ISD bonds totaling $394 million that voters rejected in May.
He also noted that building a new, larger jail will require more staffing.
“These are very complicated questions that really have to be studied,” the county judge said.
