When finished, it will house 1,242 inmates, which is more than enough for the nearly 1,000 incarcerated by the county.Īsked how long that capacity might last, Johnson merely said it was “difficult to predict.”Īccording to a study commissioned by Greene County in 2017, the jail could need to accommodate more than 2,000 inmates by 2037. In March of last year, the Greene County Commission scrapped their downtown plan and approved a $150 million expansion on the outskirts of Springfield.īeginning construction in May of 2020, the new jail is situated just south of the Springfield-Branson National Airport at the corner of Haseltine and Division. Because, you know, unfortunately we have a five-story building now and going up and down those stairs you get twisted ankles, and you get winded once you get up there,” Johnson said. “We only have one floor and one long hallway that goes across the entire jail because that way we minimize the risk of officers responding to emergencies going up and down stairways. In contrast, building a jail outside of town only adds 150 additional employees and the facility will be almost entirely on one floor. Johnson estimated that the county would have needed an extra 300 employees on top of the 298 currently employed by the Sheriff's Office. More: Springfield mayor warns national audience that the COVID 'surge is coming' on 'Face the Nation'Īn eight-floor building would have required more correctional officers on each level to prevent this issue. You got to get up there quick,” Johnson said. If you're responding to an emergency and if you're on floor one and you have to go to floor eight - that's eight flights of stairs because you ain’t taking an elevator. The only solution was to build a jail with at least eight floors. Due to the limited space available at sites near downtown, architects struggled to find space for parking. Originally, the plan was to build the facility adjacent to the one downtown, which would have cost the county $62 million.
Greene County residents approved a half-cent sales tax increase in 2017 to pay for the construction of a new jail.
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