Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The search is officially on for a location that will potentially house a new Erie County Holding Center and jail in the City of Buffalo.
It was announced on Thursday during Mark Poloncarz's "State of the County" address that $2.5 million of last year's surplus has been allocated to begin the process of acquiring a site to build a modern holding center in the city.
"One of Sheriff [John] Garcia's top priorities since taking office has been to modernize and reform the jail management division. At the top of this list comes the need for a new holding center and jail," Poloncarz said while speaking at the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library. "Erie County's nearly 100-year-old holding center is outdated, dangerous and expensive to staff and maintain. It is time to combine the two facilities into one modern center."
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Poloncarz adds a new holding center will require less staffing, protect the health and safety of both deputies and inmates, and lead to long-term cost savings for Erie County taxpayers.
"We will seek assistance from state and federal resources, and there are grants from the state and federal government to assist in jail construction, especially one that will create a safer environment for the deputies, as well as the inmates, better address issues with healthcare and mental health services at the jail," Poloncarz said. "Our holding center is approximately 100-years-old. It still has cells that are bars like you used to see when you watched the Andy Griffith Show in Mayberry, they had the bars there in the jail. No modern jail has that. It still does, and it's still used, because it has no choice. So we need to modernize, we need to build a new one. It is going to be a big ticket item, but we have to begin the process. It'll save us money in the long run too, because we can reduce staffing, and we can move forward and actually have a safer environment for those who work there, and those that are incarcerated."
As for Sheriff Garcia, he says the process to get the ball rolling on finding a potential site for a new holding center is much needed.
"When I got into office last year, we did an assessment from top-to-bottom from staffing to some of the facilities, and it was pretty obvious that we needed a new facility. We needed a step from the 1930s into the 21st century," said Garcia on Friday in an interview with WBEN.
The talk of a new holding center in the City of Buffalo is something that almost goes hand-in-hand with an issue the Sheriff brought up on Thursday during a press conference with Congressman Nick Langworthy. This new facility would bring a much-needed resource for the Sheriff's Office in Erie County, while also providing deputies and other correctional officers better resources than what's available at the current Holding Center on Delaware Avenue, or at the Correctional facility in Alden.
"Our office is probably the most unique law enforcement agency in the County, and all the Sheriff's offices are the same throughout the state in that we have the jail management division side and the road patrol. Obviously our intention is, first-and-foremost, to keep everyone safe, and a new facility is going to help tremendously in keeping safe our deputies," Garcia explained. "The sightlines, the bars that people could attempt to harm themselves on and so forth. There's porcelain sinks, toilets, there's electrical outlets in the cells. Obviously this was OK in 1937 when it was built, but it's definitely something that can be used as a weapon today."
When it comes to where the new holding center would ideally be located, it is the City of Buffalo where Sheriff Garcia is focused on going forward.
"I would say the City of Buffalo is the only location, and I say that for many reasons," he said. "One of them being we're close to city court, county court, federal court. It's so much easier, and less costly to transport the inmates back-and-forth from their court. It's easier for defense attorneys and prosecutors who stop into the facility, and the majority of the people that are being held in custody reside in the City of Buffalo, as do their families. So for visitation and so forth, it makes it easier."
As for the site location, Garcia is hoping to acquire a parcel in the city that the Sheriff's Office will be able to build a facility that is tailored to all its needs.
"We have to think about the future," Garcia said. "In building this new facility, we have gone out, my chiefs have gone out throughout the country, to look at the newest facilities, what they did and what they should have done, and evaluate those facilities and see how we could bring that back to Erie County. We have the Erie County Holding Center site here at 1040 Delaware, and then we have offices around the corner on West Eagle. I believe those properties are probably very valuable, being in Downtown Buffalo.
"Also the Alden facility site is a huge footprint out there that probably would bring the taxpayer some money. So between the two, building a new facility, which we can build upward in case, in my hope that bail reform gets reformed, you never know what the populations are going to be moving forward. But our intention is to, perhaps, look at a site that could hold about 1,500 beds."
One potential option for the Erie County Sheriff's Office would be to acquire a pre-existing building in the city and convert it into a facility that would be a state-of-the-art complex. This includes a site nearby that would be an ideal fit for the Sheriff's Office, the old Buffalo Grand Hotel.
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"The location, obviously, is the perfect location. It's downtown near the courts, it's a block away from our existing Holding Center. It's in a non-residential area, it's close to the Thruway and so forth, all the utilities are there," Garcia said. "In my opinion, it would have to be demolished, but I'm not an architect by any means, so I'll let the professionals look at that. But we are gonna give them the ideas of what is needed."
Poloncarz said Thursday there's been no bid with regards to the Buffalo Grand Hotel, as the process is in its beginning phase.
"We certainly would look at locations primarily in the City of Buffalo. We think it's best to keep it as close as possible to the court system," Poloncarz said. "The county spends a lot of money annually just transporting prisoners back-and-forth from the Alden facility, where you have to have not just one, but sometimes two deputies in a vehicle with one inmate. So it makes sense to have it in Buffalo, but there's been no decisions made at this point. It'll be an open process."
According to Garcia, the State Commission of Corrections gives the Erie County Sheriff's Office a lot of unfunded mandates that makes the department retrofit both antiquated buildings, which is a huge expense for taxpayers. In order to be in compliance with the State Commission of Corrections, Garcia believes the only way to do so is with the need for a new facility.
"We needed a new facility for our employees, where they could have an area where they can decompress, go to a lunch area that we don't have now that's air conditioned, that they can make a phone call to their loved ones, because phones are not allowed within the secured area of the neither the Holding Center or Correctional facility," Garcia said. "If you're working eight hours, if you're working 16 hours, that's very difficult on our men and women here. They're our biggest asset. The tremendous staff that we have deserve a new facility also."
When it comes to any possibility of just making upgrades to the two facilities already in operation by the Sheriff's Office, Garcia believes it would be trying to "put lipstick on a pig."
"We can't keep up with the mandates that we are mandated to follow by the State Commission of Corrections. And the Alden facility, it needs so many renovations," he said. "The diesel tanks, the electrical, the fencing, it's just on-and-on-and-on. So this needs to get done. If there's any kind of stalling and so forth, it will be my job and everyone else's, hopefully, to get behind this and push it along. What I don't want this to be is the Peace Bridge project, where we waited for decades and decades, and it never happened."
So what kind of a timeline is Garcia looking at for this process in the immediate future?
"We've seen by analyzing what the savings would be, in staffing alone, it would be $17 million a year. You add to that all the expenses, all the band aids that costs taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes even more. ... The sooner we do it, the better," Garcia said. "The County Executive put a timeline on this being opened in five years, I hope that's the case. I would like to see it as soon as possible because of that, because of the tremendous savings that we would have every year. We look at a facility that would cost $200 million, let's say, that the taxpayers would recoup that money in 10 years or less."