Fayette commissioners get deed for former Army Reserve Center, plan to convert site into new prison
The Fayette County commissioners have received the deed for the U.S. Army Reserve Center in Uniontown and plan to move forward to make the property site the new location of the Fayette County Prison.
In this file photo, Fayette County Commissioners Angela M. Zimmerlink, Vincent Vicites and Dave Lohr look over the recommended projects for the county's 2017-2018 Local Share Account applications.The Fayette County commissioners have received the deed for the U.S. Army Reserve Center in Uniontown and plan to move forward to make the property site the new location of the Fayette County Prison.
The Fayette County commissioners have received the deed for the U.S. Army Reserve Center in Uniontown and plan to move forward to make the property site the new location of the Fayette County Prison, according to a public announcement listed on the agenda for its agenda meeting Tuesday.
Commissioner Angela M. Zimmerlink said Sunday that the commissioners’ application to acquire the property at no cost for correctional facility purposes was approved with deed delivery this past week.
Commissioners have been seeking to secure a reserve center property vacated approximately a decade ago at the city limits in Uniontown along Route 21 from the state General Services Administration (GSA) for several years, having voted unanimously in April 2016 to apply to GSA to acquire the property.
Looking ahead to securing the 6.5-acre property that was vacated approximately 10 years ago, Fayette County purchased a 0.15-acre parcel adjoining the 6.5-acre property in 2016.
“We have to keep it as cost-effective as possible,” Commissioner Vincent A. Vicites said of plans for the potential new prison site.
“Utilizing a number of the usable solid buildings on-site coupled with less costly pre-cast modular cells, we can address the present and future needs,” Zimmerlink said.
Commissioner Dave Lohr could not be reached for comment Sunday.
Vicites said last year that there will be no land acquisition or infrastructural costs as the proposed Army Reserve property will be at no cost to the county and public water and utility services are included with the property.
“While the property was at no cost and there is utility and road connections, this remains a costly financial undertaking, so as we proceed it must be done openly with all opinions considered and in the most cost-efficient manner,” Zimmerlink said.
A study by the firm CGL last year recommended Fayette County construct a new prison facility at an estimated average cost of $27 million, also proposing a $30 million alternative that would maintain maximum security inmates in the current lockup and construct an adjacent facility to house the remaining, minimum security inmates.
The previous board of commissioners rejected a plan based on an earlier study by Crabtree, Rohrbaugh and Associates of Mechanicsburg, and RW Sleighter Engineers of Lemont Furnace to construct a 480-bed, 115,000-square-foot facility in Dunbar Township at a cost of about $30 million, which did not include property acquisition or infrastructure.
Vicites said that relocating the new prison to the site of the former U.S. Army Reserve Center in Uniontown would bolster prisoner transportation cost-effectiveness.
“I’ve always believed that you have to keep the facility close to the courthouse (in Uniontown),” Vicites said.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit on behalf of four inmates last month against the Fayette County Prison Board on behalf of inmates over alleged inhumane conditions at the 130-year-old county prison.
Zimmerlink cautioned that Fayette County’s tax base must be discussed as it considers the multi-million-dollar project along with having to purchase new voting machines to abide by Gov. Tom Wolf’s order for Pennsylvania’s counties to replace their electronic voting systems with machines that leave a verifiable paper trail by the end of 2019.
“We have to move forward on this,” Vicites said. “It’s time.”