Heery Study Offers Ohio Costly Choices on Lima Prison

LIMA, Ohio — Reopening the Lima Correctional Institution would cost the state $184 million in repairs and renovations, according to an independent consultant’s report.

The $50,000 study, which was commissioned by a state legislative panel, reported significant problems at the facility, including compromised roofing, buckling floors, pervasive mold and dangerous asbestos.

“Clearly, a 100-year-old building requires ample reconfiguring to meet contemporary building codes and prison requirements,” says Rory Turner, project manager for Heery International. The Atlanta-based architecture, design, engineering and construction management firm conducted the study in conjunction with consultants Justice Concepts Inc., of Kansas City, Mo.

Chaired by Terry Collins, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, the Lima Correctional Institution Study Committee was established by the state Legislature and Gov. Ted Strickland after local political, civic and business leaders lobbied for the reopening or repurposing of the prison.

“Heery was asked by a committee of eight state legislators to determine in dollars and cents the amount the state might expect to pay for revitalizing LCI,” Turner says.

Then Gov. Bob Taft ordered the 1,565-bed minimum-security facility closed in 2003, saving the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction approximately $25 million annually. Lima finally closed in 2004.

Demolition of the 575,000-square-foot prison, which opened in 1915 as Lima State Hospital for the Criminally Insane before being converted into a state prison in 1982, would cost $8.6 million, according to Heery.

In addition to the $184 million renovation of the existing facility, which sits adjacent to the 1,320-bed Allen Correctional Institution, the report provided the legislative panel with a comparative cost analysis for several alternative solutions.

The report estimates that building a new prison of comparable inmate capacity to that of Lima would cost more than $229 million. Expanding capacity at existing prisons through the addition of new dormitory housing units would cost almost $18 million, according to the report.

Renovating three existing buildings at the Allen facility to house 650 minimum-security inmates would cost more than $9 million, according to the report.

The report suggests that nonviolent inmates serving sentences of less than one year should be diverted to community-based facilities and programs. Community facilities could accommodate approximately 750 inmates at an annual cost of about $2 million, according to the report.

Ohio invested approximately $800 million to build more than 20 facilities between 1987 and 2000, officials say.

The state prison system, which is designed to house more than 38,000 inmates, is operating at approximately 130 percent of capacity with almost 50,000 inmates, according to official figures. Estimates project the prison population could increase by up to 14,000 inmates by 2016.