ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 17, 1997 TAG: 9703170029
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER THE ROANOKE TIMES
RADFORD
Three more counties will participate in a regional jail to be built in Dublin with 50 percent state funding.
The New River Valley Regional Jail, still several years from being opened, had a growth spurt Friday.
The jail authority voted to add three more localities to the five that already make up the member jurisdictions.
That will also mean the size of the 160,402-square-foot jail, to be built on a tract purchased in the Dublin Industrial Park, will go from the 240 prisoner-beds originally approved by the state to 348 beds - 276 for male prisoners and 72 for female.
This is the last regional jail project in Virginia to qualify for 50 percent state construction funds under current legislation. The resolution approved by the authority is a formal request for the funding to be included in the governor's next biennial budget.
The original member jurisdictions were Radford and the counties of Pulaski, Giles and Grayson. Bland County was added later.
And now three more counties - Floyd, Wythe and Carroll - have joined the project. All three were in on its planning years ago, and dropped out at various times as project supporters wound through changing state requirements to qualify for the 50 percent funding. Now, with the costs and state regulations on local jails getting bigger and more complicated all the time, all three localities decided to get back in.
Next month, the authority will consider which of three construction-management proposals to accept to start work on the project.
"I think we are now on the verge of building a very good project," said Assistant Radford City Manager Bob Lloyd, authority chairman. "I do indeed appreciate everything that everybody has done."
Completion of the regional jail will mean the closing of eight existing local jails.
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