A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
This is an artist's rendering of the new Justice Center. Plans are not complete and some parts of the building may change. The view is from Olsonville looking southeast.
This schematic shows the proposed building shifted clockwise and running from the southwest to the northeast. The driveway in the lower left leads to the transportation building.
Preliminary site details for the new Carlton County justice center were revealed this week in an update from the working committee at a discussion-only meeting of the board of commissioners. The justice center, which includes jail and district court facilities, will sit just northeast of the county transportation building on what formerly was Twin Lakes Township property. That section was annexed into the City of Carlton in order to place the justice center there.
Jail administrator Paul Coughlin, who is the lead on getting the project up and running, said Monday that work on the site will begin in May with land clearing. Actual construction could begin in August in what is expected to be a 22-month-long build.
By July, the county should have the maximum price set on the cost of the new facility, projected right now at about $75 million. The county is continuing to seek state bonding of $22 million for the project. It will also need to see a vote of county residents in November asking that the balance of the project be paid through a sales tax, with the legislature giving permission for the vote last year. Using sales taxes would ease the burden on county property owners for a facility that is going ahead no matter how it is paid for.
The state has deemed the current jail facility in Carlton inadequate for today's needs, leading to the flurry of activity in the past few years to find an alternative.
The county has bonded for $10 million already to pay for preparation costs and the county board will likely approve bonding of $27.5 million next week. There is a bit of a rush on this round as changes in interest rates are expected and world events, such as the conflict in Ukraine, could disrupt supply chains and costs.
The project has three phases, Coughlin reported Monday. The first is already underway in ordering the precast panels that will be used in the structure. They have a long order process that needed to be started now. The second phase is the site work and the third is for actual construction.
The site plan, and the look of the justice center itself, is a work in progress, Coughlin said. There are a host of cost considerations to make along with figuring out exact site details such as wetland buffer areas. There are other considerations, such as how and to what scale to hook up to the new Twin Lakes waterline.
The county board is also expected to approve next week the use of a public relations firm to educate county residents about the sales tax vote in November. Sheriff Kelly Lake said the justice center advisory committee agreed that outside help was needed. The county expects the bulk of the campaign to come in the cost of mailing and other material, with the total campaign cost expected to be up to $27,000.
