Construction of Dane County Jail underway

MADISON, Wisconsin – In March, the Dane County Sheriff announced the groundbreaking for the Dane County Jail Consolidation Project.

“I am pleased to stand here and celebrate this special moment in Dane County history,” said Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett.

This was the moment that kicked off the construction of the most expensive project in Dane County history. The project will cost over $207 million and will fund the construction of a six-story building with a tower for 825 beds.

Barrett said the health of community members is priceless.

“We are all one bad decision away from going to prison,” Barrett said. “How would you want your mother or your sister to be treated if they were in prison?”

Miron Construction was the only general contractor to bid on the project.

Gerald David is the project manager. He said his crew is currently working to build the tower in the rear parking lot of the public safety building.

“We are on site working on the new tower for the prison. In the background you can see our trading partner. They are dismantling the last retaining walls in the foundation of the vault here,” said David.

David said his team is currently working on building a platform so that a tower crane can be deployed.

“As soon as we have the tower crane in place, we will start building the new building,” said David. “It's pretty noisy here and it will stay that way for a few weeks.”

David said most people think of manual labor when they hear about a construction project, but he said a lot of work goes on behind the scenes to ensure projects stay on schedule.

“We have an overall plan, and we take that overall plan and put a milestone here. The red stickers are milestones,” David said, pointing to a schedule board full of tasks on post-it notes.

(Spectrum News 1/Cody Taylor)

At the beginning of the project, David said, there will only be a handful of workers. As the project progresses, David said, there will be several hundred employees.

The estimated completion date of the project is June 2027. David said there are always unforeseen obstacles that can get in the way of that completion date.

“Just getting a truck with a crane on it for this project is a challenge,” David said. “You could get caught in a traffic jam that puts you back half a day, and you're digging in an area that hasn't been dug in maybe hundreds of years, and you don't know what's down there.”

David said when his team encounters obstacles, they do everything they can to keep the project on track.

Barrett said he had confidence in David and his team.

While the sheriff said the jail was a much-needed addition to the community, he was concerned that the size of the building could be a problem.

(Spectrum News 1/Cody Taylor)

“Dane County is a rapidly growing community and I do not believe our jail capacity will decrease in the future due to societal factors that we have not yet found solutions to,” Barrett said.

He said the original agreement called for 902 beds and an additional floor, but for the prison to reach its full potential, it must never be more than 80 percent full.

“Eighty percent of the 825 beds are full, and we're going to get 660 beds,” Barrett said. “On Monday, we had 641 inmates in the jail, so if we opened the new building today, we'd be close to maximum capacity.”