CAPE COUNTY BUILDS IN THE YEAR 2000

JACKSON, Mo. -- The Cape Girardeau County government spent millions of dollars on new construction projects in 2000, highlighted by construction of a new jail.

The $8 million jail and sheriff's office, built adjacent to the existing jail in Jackson, will open on March 4 with an open house from 1:30-4 p.m.

Prisoners will be moved into the new cell areas on March 5, county officials said.

The Cape Girardeau County Justice Center wasn't the only project that took shape last year.

The county spent more than $1 million buying land and constructing a new archive center in Jackson, buying a building in Jackson for the public defender's office and land in Cape Girardeau for a new juvenile detention center.

"We really spent a lot of money," Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones said.

The county budgeted $7.5 million for capital improvements in 2000, with the jail project heading up the list. The capital improvements drove up the county's total budget to $20 million.

Planning continues for construction of a new juvenile detention center with county commissioners looking at trying to trim the costs for a project that could cost close to $4 million. The new juvenile center would be built on a nine-acre site at the end of Progress Street in an industrial area west of South Kingshighway.

Construction of a $4.7 million nature center in Cape Girardeau County North Park also could get under way this year. The county commission plans to issue bonds for both projects.

The Missouri Department of Conservation would operate the single-story, 19,000-square-foot nature center and pay off the bonds over 10 years. The project includes extension of a sewer line to the park and relocation of the park entrance road.

Archive center

The county had been working on a plan to build a records storage center for more than two years. It was needed to house all the mounds of paper, maps and permanent records the county is required to keep. Sides Construction Co. was hired in January 2000 for the building project, which cost $489,333.

Since no central building was available until now, the county had been storing its records in the basements, hallways and closets of its buildings and in the bell towers at both the Common Pleas Courthouse in Cape Girardeau and the County Courthouse in Jackson. Some are even at Kent Library on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University.

With a new building, all the records will be accessible for research. The building also offers a temperature- and humidity-controlled atmosphere.

The county has 4,000 cubic feet of records and 3,000 cubic feet of them are available for researchers. Some documents, such as adoption records and some sealed court documents, are not open to public researchers.

Many of the documents are stored on microfilm so that researchers have immediate access. With a new microfilm reader and printer, the public will have a chance to find the documents and then send that microfilm image to themselves via e-mail.

New jail

Cape Girardeau County Sheriff John Jordan spent the first part of this year overseeing the finishing touches on the new jail.

He spent much of his six years in office arguing for it, hoping to alleviate overcrowding and stop paying to house inmates at other area jails.

As jails go, it's spacious and high-tech. It includes a room for video arraignments, which allow a judge in the nearby county courthouse to handle initial court appearances through a closed-circuit television system.

A bank of computer monitors gives the sheriff an eagle-eye view of the building and the area around the courthouse square.

The old sheriff's office and jail on High Street covers 18,000 square feet. Designed to hold 64 inmates, it opened in May 1979, replacing an old brick home the county courthouse square that had served as the jail since 1906.

The new, three-story, 66,000-square-foot structure faces Missouri Street. It's designed to hold as many as 152 inmates.

The entire sheriff's department a 60-member staff of road deputies, detectives, jailers, bailiffs and office personnel will move into the new justice center.

The old jail cells will remain. They could be used to house any overflow of inmates, Jordan said.

The public lobby, sheriff's offices and a spacious garage are on the first floor of the new building, along with a Missouri Highway Patrol office. Two tiers of battleship gray jail cells are on the second floor. There are concrete floors above and below the cells for security.

Each 100-square-foot cell is designed to hold two inmates and is equipped with a metal bunk bed and toilet. The cells are arranged in pods.

Most of the pods can hold as many as 24 inmates. One area is set aside for women and another for men incarcerated for non-violent offenses such as writing bad checks and driving drunk.

The cells in each pod empty into a commons area with stainless steel tables and attached stools anchored to the concrete floor.

Jailers can watch the inmates in the pods from behind special window glass in a central monitoring area. The glass doesn't allow inmates to see the jailers.

"We want a jail that is easily run, that is user friendly," Jordan said during a recent tour of the new jail.

The third floor has been left for future expansion. County officials said it could be developed into a courtroom in the future.

The building is built to handle a fourth floor should it be needed.