Arkansas corrections panel OKs design firms for new prison; next step legislative approval
Arkansas' prison oversight board on Tuesday unanimously approved a contract with two architectural engineering firms to design a planned state prison.
The state Board of Corrections gave preliminary approval in May to the $57 million contract with Omaha, Neb.-based HDR and Little Rock-based Cromwell Architects Engineers, but held off formal approval until Tuesday's special-call meeting because some members had questions.
The Arkansas Legislative Council, which is scheduled to meet June 20, must give final approval.
The contract does not specify where the prison will be built, and board Chairman Benny Magness emphasized the lack of specificity.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her legislative leaders have said the state intends to build a 3,000-bed prison on 815 acres in Franklin County. That decision rankled some lawmakers and local officials who said they hadn't been consulted on the site choice, and lawmakers opposed to the location helped kill a bill this spring that would have appropriated $750 million toward the proposed prison.
Board member Lee Watson, who had asked for the delay in approval of the design contract, said his concerns had been addressed. He'd wanted to know whether the architects would have the ability 'to scale as needed depending on what the Legislature budgets for us,' he said.
In May, he asked whether the contract would allow for the possibility of another location and whether it would allow for construction of the facility in stages.
Luann Salado, project manager for the board's construction manager, Vanir Construction Management, said in May that the aim is to prepare a design that would 'at least let you understand what it would cost to do — what 3,000 beds would look like, and then allow the state to choose how much [it's] actually going to build based on how much is actually appropriated to use to build. But we have to start somewhere.'
'You absolutely will have to do this in stages. That is the approach,' she said.
The prison board hired Vanir last October, before Sanders announced the state's purchase of the Franklin County prison site. The board chose the two design firms in April and chose the partnership of Nabholz Construction of Conway and J.E. Dunn Construction of Kansas City, Missouri, as the general contractor for the prison in May.
Watson asked Corrections Department Chief Financial Officer Chad Brown at the May meeting if it would be 'kosher within our budgeting process' to pay for the full design.
Arkansas Legislature concludes 2025 legislative session; conflict over planned prison continues
Brown said the contract will be a 'pay as we go' arrangement as long as the total payment remains under an 'authority dollar amount.' The contract allows the state to withdraw from it with seven days' notice.
Some of the local frustration over the 815 acres of Franklin County land for the prison comes from the Indigenous Chickamauga Nation, which has said the project could have a negative impact on its burial sites in the area.
The HDR/Cromwell contract has a clause that states the Board of Corrections will 'appropriately adjust' if anything in the project will 'materially change,' Corrections Secretary Lindsay Wallace said.
This story uses information previously reported by the Advocate's Tess Vrbin.
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