Erie County officials have been talking about building a new jail since last year. Now they are ready to shell out some money to move the conversation forward.
“It’s time to begin the process to build a new, unified jail,” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said in a meeting this week with The Buffalo News. “The Holding Center is a disaster. It’s just so old and antiquated.”
The county plans to spend $750,000 on two planning and architecture firms who would spearhead a new jail feasibility study. The study would consider the limitations of the two current county jails; reimagine what could and should be accommodated in a new facility; and broadly estimate future jail-related costs, depending on where a new facility may be located and what programs it would house.
The county operates the downtown Holding Center and Erie County Correctional Facility in Alden. Both are known to be outdated and incompatible with modern correctional facility needs. While County Executive Mark Poloncarz earmarked $2.5 million to lay the groundwork for a new, unified county jail in April 2022, it has taken until now to spend any of that money, given the complex nature of the work.
The administration intends to hire Buffalo-based Foit-Albert Associates, which has done smaller…
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