Vertical Solutions in Urban Jail Construction

Photo: Nashville’s mid-rise Criminal Justice Center, which takes up a square block in the city’s downtown, expanded upward rather than outward.

By CN Staff

As correctional systems plan more facilities in urban areas, many are choosing to build upward rather than outward. Vertical construction is becoming more common due to land scarcity, zoning limitations, adjacency to courts and the need for secure centralized services.

Vertical construction was a recurring theme during a recent discussion of the Correctional News Editorial Advisory Board (EAB) and the Industry Knowledge Council (IKC). Leaders from across the justice architecture and construction space noted the shift in approach that comes with building in denser, more complex environments.

“Designing a vertical detention center is one of the most complex building types in the world. The technical, security and life safety decisions are very demanding,” said Jeff Goodale, director of justice practice at HOK and IKC member.

Jails are often tethered to the communities they serve. Jails in urban areas benefit from proximity to courts, public transit, healthcare services and ease of family visitation. However, tight footprints reduce the ability to stage construction materials or offer staff parking, which means precisely choreographing logistics and timing deliveries. In a correctional facility, life safety and security are of the utmost importance, which can make vertical design complex, but often necessary.

When Going Vertical Makes Sense

Population increases (and subsequent crime increases) also put pressure on space, making vertical construction a strategic option.

In Nashville, the Metro-Davidson Community Justice Center (CJC) had a single city block to work with. At five stories, the 872-bed facility is barely considered a “mid-rise,” but correctional officials had no option but to continue to build upward to meet the correctional demands of the county.

“If you are downtown, you are going more vertical, not horizontal,” said Rick Bruining, justice director with Bell Construction, the general contractor for the CJC project.

The decision to build vertically was not just about density, but efficiency, access and alignment with the existing county facilities. CJC’s strategic urban placement provides programming for mental health, direct access to courts and timely healthcare to the incarcerated population. The facility is even connected to the courts via an underground tunnel.

HOK, the national architecture firm behind CJC and New York City’s Borough-Based Jail (BBJ) project, is well-versed in developing logistically complex vertical facilities.

Goodale noted that, while the public sees these facilities as buildings, they are also integrated systems with tightly stacked circulation, secure elevators and programs that must co-locate for staffing and emergency response.

“You’re getting as much programming jammed into this envelope as you can,” said Goodale.

Stacking Design Complexity

All construction within corrections requires a level of precision, due to life safety, security and movement. Vertical construction brings in additional complexity.

Elements of the building must be considered, not just by square footage, but also by vertical relationship. Spaces such as intake, visitation, medical, housing, food service, and recreation are laid out and stacked. The sequence has to support staffing, emergency response time and controlled movements.

“Vertical means front-loading decisions,” Goodale explained. “Once steel is ordered, you are committed. There are serious consequences if changes come later.”

Structural decisions related to elevator count, stairwell placement and egress paths are often some of the most complex. A poorly placed sallyport or visitation area can significantly disrupt operations, meaning some sacrifices must be made in dense city blocks to compress a campus to a single, yet functional, tower footprint.

On the BBJ project, facilities are designed to be upwards of 15 stories, a true high-rise jail. Goodale’s team has had to deftly maneuver the program layout to preserve security and maintain sightlines, while being responsive to the neighborhood context. The podium level, which supports multiple programs that typically belong on the first floor, becomes especially challenging.

Construction Logistics

In urban facilities such as CJC in downtown Nashville, there are space limitations surrounding the facility. With the reason for vertical construction being a reduced footprint, there was also no excess room for parking, for laying down materials or to stage things ahead of time.

The construction team relied on just-in-time delivery, with the tower crane that was placing the prefabricated modular cells, scheduled down to the hour to keep materials moving without significant disruption to surrounding streets.

“You have to manage your tower crane time very well [in vertical construction],” said Bruining. “You schedule your crane like it’s an asset, because it is.”

Space constraints impacted construction logistics, but they resulted in a positive impact on staffing. Where campus construction may require multiple superintendents to manage different buildings simultaneously, a vertical project can operate with a leaner management structure.

Staffing efficiency is a quiet advantage of vertical construction. Workers are concentrated in a single structure, so with precise planning and scheduling, this can result in sequencing trades, coordinating subcontractors and crews, and keeping the critical path moving.

Structural Strategies for Prefab and Weight

Possibly the most crucial factor—and limitation—in vertical construction is weight. Prefabrication offers a lot of efficiency in all types of construction; the benefits become even more pronounced when building up, not out.

Prefab modular construction allows significant portions of the work inside a cell to be completed off-site, reducing workforce size, vehicle congestion and on-site material requirements in a tight urban environment. For a vertical build, this is a major advantage.

The key to this efficiency is standardized cells. If housing units follow a consistent design, modular options can provide speed and control over the construction process—but not all modular options are interchangeable.

“For this industry, modular makes much more sense; especially going vertical,” said Bruining. “But at a certain point, going vertical with precast modular isn’t the answer.”

It comes down to a weight issue, and the structural demands that come with it. Precast concrete cells can weigh several times more than the steel options, a reality that increases structural load, impacts shimming tolerances and drives up cost.

To read more about vertical construction, as well as an alternative example of a horizontally-constructed facility in Nashville, check out the full article in the 2025 Regional Edition of Correctional News.