Assumptions that the Interbay area could become home to a new city jail were confirmed May 6 at a briefing held by the city an hour after this newspaper went to press.
The location of the former Northwest Center on West Amory Way in Interbay is one of four potential locations under consideration for a new jail to house the city's misdemeanor prisoners, said Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis.
The others are located on 7.15 acres of land at 11762 Aurora Ave. N.; on 10.51 acres of land at 7200 W. Marginal Way S.W.; and on 12 acres of land at 9501 Meyers Way S.
City officials the week before had declined to offer any specifics about potential locations, and the change of heart last Tuesday was the result of press coverage that included a story last week in this newspaper, Ceis said. The city was originally going to wait another two to three weeks before releasing details, he added.
A new jail is needed because the King County jail system is running out of room to house its own felony prisoners and has informed the city that it will no longer accept misdemeanor prisoners from the city by the end of 2012, the deputy mayor explained.
And it doesn't matter that the city's misdemeanor jail population has dropped by almost 40 percent in the last 10 years, according to Catharine Cornwall, a senior policy analyst who has taken the lead on the jail project for the Office of Policy and Management.
The decline in the number of city prisoners is partially the result of diversion programs such as mental-health and drug courts, she said. But jail time is mandatory for a number of misdemeanor crimes such as domestic violence, failure to appear in court and driving under the influence, Cornwall said. "We book almost a thousand people a month into jail," she said.
The bottom line is that the city needs a 445-bed jail, although city officials are exploring the possibility of a joint jail venture with both North End and Eastside cities, which will need 192 new jail beds, Cornwall said. South End cities have formed their own consortium to build a separate 812-bed jail for their own misdemeanor prisoners, she said.
The criteria for a new jail included not being in a residential area, being near a major arterial and being on at least 7 acres of land, explained Mary Pearson, Deputy Director of the Seattle's Fleets and Facilities Department.[[In-content Ad]]That much land is needed because the city wants to build a low-rise jail instead of a high-rise facility, she said. A low-rise building is preferable because of safety considerations, Pearson added.
The city started out with 35 potential sites. One of those was on West Jameson Street between 24th and 26th avenues west in the Magnolia area, while a second was in the Port of Seattle's North Bay area above Terminals 90 and 91. The Port location was dropped because the Port property has poor road access and because it lacks utilities, Ceis said.
Including the West Jameson Street and Northwest Center sites, that number was narrowed down to 11 and finally down to the final four following a more detailed analysis, he said.
Surprise, surprise
The former Northwest Center, which employed developmentally disabled people, was purchased by the Monorail Authority and later sold to a private developer when the monorail plans were cancelled.
The Northwest Center site has been fully rented out to various businesses, and one of them is the Meyers Wells furniture-manufacturing plant, which was also kept out of the loop.
"We hadn't heard anything about the jail until we saw the TV cameras here," said John Wells who owns the business with Seth Meyers. "We were the first anchor tenants here," Wells added.
Wells is philosophical about the chance of losing his space. "We knew our time here was limited, anyway," Wells said, explaining that he'd heard the property was going to be redeveloped into a big-box store.
The company - which employs five - uses salvaged city trees to make furniture, some of which will be located in the remodeled Magnolia Public Library, Wells said.
His company still has four years left on its lease, and the lease has a provision that calls for nine months' notice if the company has to leave, he said. "We hope we can stay here as long as we can."
Short timeline
That might not be much longer. Seattle City Council member and Queen Anne resident Tim Burgess said the city is expected to make a decision by late June or early July about building its own jail or teaming up with Eastside and North End cities for a joint project. The city is also expected to make its choice for a location before the end of the year, according to a briefing paper.
Still, Burgess stressed, any of the final four choices could be eliminated, and a new location could be identified, as well. Burgess is working on the issue with a group that includes Ceis and fellow council members Jan Drago and Nick Licata.
Drago, who attended the press briefing for a short time, said city officials have tried everything they could think of to avoid having to build its own jail for misdemeanants. She also pledged that the public will get a chance to have its say about the project.
A complete public-engagement process has been mapped out, according to Ceis. There will be multiple opportunities for the public to comment on the final-four list and to make suggestions for alternative locations, he said.
Some of those opportunities will include hearings at the city-council level, and there are pro forma opportunities, as well. Public comment will be taken this fall over what should be included in an environmental-impact statement, for example. A Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) will include public comments, as well, and those comments will be included in a final EIS.
Ceis conceded that no one is going to want a jail in their area, but there are other concerns about impacts such as transportation that the public can weigh in on, he said. Still, the deputy mayor pointed out an inescapable fact about a new jail. "It has to be located somewhere."
Work on a new jail has to begin in the summer of 2010 to meet the deadline at the end of 2012, according to city estimates. A 2-year-old study pegs the cost of a 445-bed jail at $110 million, Ceis said.
But an annual inflation rate of around 24 percent for construction cost in the Puget Sound region lately could more than double the amount by the time the jail is completed. The costs will be covered by councilmanic debt, he said.
Staff reporter Russ Zabel can be reached at rzabel@nwlink.com or 461-1309.
