STATE ACCEPTS $70/9 MILLION BID FOR CHARLESTON PRISON

CHARLESTON -- A contract for construction of a maximum-security prison at Charleston was awarded to an Illinois contractor Friday.

The 1,500-bed Southeast Correctional Center will be built by River City Construction of Benton, Ill., at a cost of $70,933,000.

The contract was accepted by Randall Allen, director of the Missouri Division of Design and Construction, after three weeks of deliberations. River City Construction submitted the lowest of three bids for the prison.

Caddell Construction of Montgomery, Ala., and SCM Joint Venture of St. Louis also bid on the project.

"We're happy here," said former state Rep. Betty Hearnes, a longtime Charleston resident and wife of former Missouri Gov. Warren Hearnes. "It's going to mean growth. It's going to mean jobs."

Construction should begin in Charleston this month or early November. The prison will sit on 120 acres about 300 feet off Highway 105 near Interstate 57. Approximately 439 jobs and a $9.1 million annual payroll comes with the prison.

The site is to be completed and ready for occupancy by May 14, 2001.

"People are excited that we're going to have some movement now," Hearnes said. "They look forward to the changes that are going to be made."

Charleston was one of two communities that successfully bid for one of two state prisons in 1997. Licking, a town of about 1,400 in south-central Missouri, is the other site.

Construction at Licking is about 80 percent completed.

Construction of the Charleston prison originally was slated to begin in September 1998, but bids significantly higher than the $73 million estimate delayed the project, and new bids were sought.

Although second-round bids still were significantly higher than the revised estimate of $65.3 million, state officials decided to award a contract to proceed with construction.