From Disaster to Transformation: The Rebirth of Louisiana’s Women’s Prison

Photo: The 300,000-square-foot facility offers a modern, program-driven environment that increases safety for all. | Photo Credit: (all) Grace Design Studios

By Lindsey Coulter

When flooding devastated the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women (LCIW) in 2016, it left the state without any dedicated facility for women offenders. However, the natural disaster also opened the door to rethinking correctional design in Louisiana. Rebuilding from the ground up gave state officials and Architect of Record, Grace Design Studios, the opportunity to create the state’s first new facility in 35 years — and to center rehabilitation, safety and reentry.

Caddell Construction, in a joint venture with Arkel Constructors, served as Construction Manager At-Risk for the new complex, which today includes an administration building, medical and mental health center, two dormitories, education and vocational buildings, a gymnasium, kitchen, postpartum building and maintenance warehouse. Caddell was able to offer expertise in estimating and preconstruction, on-site project supervision, executive management and relationships with specialty correctional subcontractors, while Arkel’s relationships with local subcontractors, vendors and suppliers, the State of Louisiana and with Grace Design Studios further ensured project success.

Spanning approximately 300,000 square feet, the new LCIW accommodates nearly 1,000 women. While maintaining stringent security and visibility standards, the campus introduces softer, more normalized interior and exterior spaces that promote dignity, calm and personal growth.

Reimagining and Rebuilding

Even before the floodwaters had receded, Jerry Hebert, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP, Partner and Chief Executive Officer at Grace Design Studios and Alex Deshotels, AIA, NCARB, the firm’s Partner and Civic Practice Leader, visited the site with correctional officials to see what was salvageable. They found several feet of standing water across the campus, causing mold and significant damage to buildings and infrastructure.

The original goal was to renovate the campus, which required working with FEMA to determine which buildings had damage that exceeded more than 50% of their value, explained Hebert. However, only half of the buildings met that threshold for replacement, and to further complicate the project, FEMA required that new buildings had to meet the 500-year floodplain requirement.

“That would have meant rebuilding some facilities while demolishing others, while also revamping the entire infrastructure,” Hebert said.

Luckily, the State of Louisiana allocated additional land and funding to the project, which then faced the additional hurdle of parish-level floodplain requirements. That meant raising the entire site and creating large retention ponds.

Opting instead to relocate the campus to higher ground provided a clean slate for a new vision. The greenfield site that was ultimately selected consisted of unmaintained grasslands and two small ponds with pockets of emergent wetlands. During preconstruction, Arkel and Caddell suggested surcharging the site at the building pads, based on recommendations from geotechnical investigations. This expedited settlement at the building pads and reduced the number of timber piles installed, thus reducing the overall structural design and cost.

The combination of design and construction efforts has resulted in a modern, program-driven environment that is safer for staff and residents, more efficient to operate and better aligned with contemporary correctional philosophies.

Construction Expertise

The Arkel-Caddell joint venture was first selected for the Phase 1 Preconstruction Service portion of the contract. This allowed the combined expertise of the partners to review the design at certain stages and provide value-engineering options that reduced the overall project cost.

As preconstruction originated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when construction material cost escalations were difficult to manage and plan for, the Arkel-Caddell team collaborated with state officials to find an innovative solution that allowed the project to move forward despite price uncertainty. Complex schedule constraints offered further challenges and opportunities for innovative approaches that ultimately led to positive outcomes.

In addition to rising costs, ADA compliance was a challenging opportunity that took a combined effort among all project stakeholders to overcome. During construction, certain ADA regulations were amended, and compliance by the Louisiana Department of Corrections was non-negotiable. The challenge was that mandatory revisions were implemented toward the end of the project. This required demolition and alterations of already-completed permanent work such as walls, millwork, toilet partitions and lavatories.

“I was proud of our project team for handling every challenge with a can-do attitude and willingness to shift and adapt to whatever was needed to keep progressing until we crossed the final finish line,” said Michael Lewis, Construction Executive, Caddell Construction. “Their positive approach and cooperative spirit made even the most challenging days better.”

Despite ambitious design goals, site challenges, and material cost escalation during the COVID-19 pandemic, the project team was able to deliver the project for under $137 million.

“This project was truly a success,” said Derek Fife, President, Arkel Constructors. “The joint venture worked well together, and the construction and design teams worked consistently to be proactive and supportive of each other.”

To read more about how the project team embraced a campus-style design approach and built in programming, healthcare and safety and security features, read the rest of the article in the November-December Healthcare edition of Correctional News.