Corrections Facilities See the Benefits of Sustainable Building

New Buildings will be Green

As inmate populations continue to rise, prison construction follows. Fortunately, states are finding ways to save money through sustainable building.

Although crime rates in the Pacific Northwest have declined since a peak in the late 80s and early 90s, the need for new or remodeled correctional facilities remains strong, and there are a number of projects on the boards, under construction or just completed.

They range from prisons to juvenile detention halls to the administrative buildings that run them.

While the number of prison beds needed is almost always rising, government cannot break ground until a certain threshold has been met to assure the facility will be nearly full upon opening. In the interim, many prisoners are sent to private, out-of-state correctional facilities in places such as Arizona, Alaska and even Hawaii as part of routine "outsourcing" plans until there is enough prison space back home.

In Oregon, the state was ready to give the go-ahead two years ago for the Oregon Men's Prison in Madras, but the state stalled construction on the 600,000-sq.- ft., 2,000-bed medium and minimum-security prison because of the economic turndown.

Groundbreaking will finally occur on the medium-security portion, with DLR Group as the architect and Hoffman Construction, both of Portland the contractor in a construction-manager delivery system.

The contractor for the minimum-security will be separate, to be determined as part of a hard-bid delivery.

"It will be unique for us to have two totally separate contractors on the same site," said Doug Young, head of new prison construction for the state Department of Corrections.

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The minimum-security portion of the Madras facility will include more than 800 beds and is being adapted from a prototype design DLR Group first produced for the Two Rivers Correctional Facility in Umatilla and then the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility near Wilsonville.

The plan is also being used on the other in-progress prison in Oregon, the Warner Creek Correctional Facility in Lakeview, a 400-bed minimum-security prison slated for completion in September. .

Another way states such as Washington and Oregon are promoting operational efficiency is through what's called "direct supervision," an emphasis on relating to each inmate as a person.

"You don't just look at them through a glass window," said Bill Buursma of DLR Group's Seattle office. "It creates no relationship that way, and people become more agitated.

"They're still in prison. They're not being coddled. They're still expected to act right. But at least you walk up to them and talk to them."

Buursma said architecture can help with direct supervision by creating interior spaces that help reduce the stir-craziness that can lead to unwanted outbursts.

One of the primary ways of creating a more normalized atmosphere is through daylighting, the use of natural solar illumination. For example, at the recently completed minimum-security women's prison in Wilsonville, which was also designed and built by DLR and Hoffman, there is a large glass wall in the day room that gives inmates added natural light.

"These people can see the world out there, instead of just being buried in a hole," Buursma said. "The intent is, again, to tone down and normalize the atmosphere."

Daylighting is only one way that projects in the correctional industry are getting greener.

In November the state of Washington issued an executive order requiring projects over 25,000 sq. ft. to meet at least a Silver LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. But Washington's Department of Corrections is ahead of the curve.

"We had our own executive order about a year ago," said Pam Jenkins, director of environmental programs for Washington DOC. "We decided that all our projects over 5,000 sq. ft. should be LEED Silver. We're actually a little bit ticked that the state backed off to 25,000 sq. ft., because that excludes a whole lot of buildings.

"We anticipate substantial operational savings. We also anticipate better staff satisfaction. And from a health perspective, we expect a lower rate of complaints by both staff and inmates, particularly with respect to indoor air-quality issues."

Oregon is also following a green course, with correctional facilities mandated by executive order to be designed according to LEED Silver standards, although they need not be officially registered as such.

In addition to the Madras project, the new Warner Creek Correctional Facility in Lakeview is currently under construction. The 400-bed men's minimum-security facility was designed by Group Mackenzie of Portland and is being built by Hoffman Construction as part of a hard-bid contract.

Hoffman's Gerry Hein said that even though the two jobs are being done simultaneously, they couldn't be more different. The Lakeview prison is wood-framed, which minimum-security allows, while the medium-security prison in Madras is made with concrete and masonry.

"There's a lot of planning that has to go into it," Hein said of the latter facility. "All the front-end work that you have to do is critical. It has to be exact. You can't just fish a conduit or a wire down a stud wall because the wall is hard." Oregon is also overseeing upcoming expansions of two existing prisons: 100 more beds for the Shutter Creek Correctional Facility in North Bend, with completion in December 2005; and pending funding approval, an expansion of Coffee Creek in Wilsonville.

"The Coffee Creek project was really successful," Young said. "It just filled up a lot faster than everybody thought."

Although savings in operational costs are the primary driving force in correctional projects going green - particularly because the 24/7 nature of prisons mean their payback is up to three times faster than other project types - daylighting and other sustainable building practices may also make inmates easier to deal with.

"I even think in some of our western Washington locations we'll see a decrease in offender-to-staff assaults, because we're going to have more daylight in our buildings," Jenkins said.

The handling of food waste is also going green "We estimate between 1 and 2 lbs. of food per day per offender (is wasted)," Jenkins added. "It's thousands of tons of food waste a year. And it's very costly to send that to a landfill. So we actually have a zero food waste group set up to look at the entire cycle of food production, transportation, processing, warehousing, preparation, serving and disposal."

Going green isn't just happening on the state level, either. Just completed this summer was the city of Seattle's Park 90-5 Police Support Facility, which has received a coveted Gold LEED rating for one of its buildings and Silver for the others.

Co-designed by Donald King Architects of ???? and SHKS Architects of ???? and built by ???-based Turner Construction, the $24.5 million project included renovation and earthquake damage repair (after the 2001 Nisqually tremors) as well as new offices and training rooms.

Sustainable features included a 95 percent construction waste-recycling rate, certified lumber and an innovative heat recovery system.

Also in Seattle, construction is under way on a replacement of the King County Correctional Facility, which broke ground in September and will be completed within about 24 months. Budget is $13.4 million for the 435,000-sq.-ft. project.

Snohomish County's $167 million campus redevelopment, including a multistory detention facility, 160,000-sq.-ft. administration building and 1,200-car parking garage, was completed in December. The 243,000-sq.-ft. jail complex contains 640 beds and is connected to the county courthouse by a transportation tunnel.

Continuing the green theme, the new Snohomish County facility is also supported by its own below-grade utility plant. The project was designed by NBBJ, of Seattle and built by Mortenson of Bellevue, Wash.