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Judge and consultant weigh three paths — repair, expand or build new — and caution costs will rise with delay
Summary
Burns outlined three options (do nothing, retrofit/expand existing 30‑year facility, or build new) and gave illustrative timeframes (about 2.5 years to expand; ~4 years to build new) and ballpark, illustrative cost figures to show long‑term fiscal stakes if the county delays action.
Burns told the court that each path has tradeoffs: repairing the existing facility could extend life short‑term but leave significant mechanical and security problems; expanding/retrofitting would require substantial upfront work and roughly 2.5 years to complete; building a new, properly designed facility would take approximately four years (design, bidding, construction) but could better control long‑term operating costs.
Burns used comparators to illustrate cost sensitivity, noting Midland County's ongoing 776‑bed project and past projects his firm had worked on. He presented an illustrative figure of $200 million for a large new facility today and warned that construction‑price escalation (he used an 8% planning factor) could raise long‑term costs dramatically if the county waits.
"If you build a new jail today, let's say it costs $200,000,000... but if you wait 25 years to build that same building, we've calculated it'd be $1,300,000,000," Burns said as an example of escalation risk. He emphasized these were planning‑level estimates, not final bids, and said precise budget numbers would appear in the forthcoming written report.
