FAYETTEVILLE -- Washington County Judge Patrick Deakins said Monday that the county has "fired" the architect and construction manager on the $20 million jail expansion project.
Deakins sent a letter Monday to Smith-Doyle Contractors, which has been providing construction management services on the project, giving the firm notice of the county's intention "to terminate said contract for convenience and without cause."
"We're going to put this out for bids for a new construction manager as quickly as possible," Deakins said. "We hope they will be able to solicit more local partners and bring down the cost."
Deakins said the county has been trying to work with Smith-Doyle Contractors and Spirit Architecture for several months in hopes of generating more interest and more competitive bids on the project among local contractors, but had reached an impasse.
The county wanted to hire a local construction manager for the project, but Southbuild, the parent company for both Smith-Doyle and Spirit Architecture, from Collierville, Tenn., insisted Smith-Doyle be retained and paid as a consultant.
"That was never going to work," Deakins said.
The Quorum Court appropriated about $19.8 million for the project. A bid opening in February failed to generate bids on some parts of the project, and other bids were incomplete. The project was rebid, and bids received in March had a total cost of about $26.6 million.
"When you know you're the only bidder, your costs are going to go up," Deakins said of the early rounds of bidding on the project.
Sheriff Jay Cantrell said the discussions with Smith-Doyle Contractors and Spirit Architecture didn't generate any ideas for increasing interest in the project. He said he hopes a local construction manager, with closer ties to contractors in the area, will be more successful.
"When we were talking to Smith-Doyle, they said, 'We've done 51 of these projects and 50 of them went flawlessly. We don't know why this one didn't,'" Cantrell said. "I am an optimist. If we can find someone who is local, they can put the finger on some local contractors and say, 'I need you to bid on this.' Southbuild was from out-of-state. Some people may have viewed this as a one-off type of thing as opposed to working with a local guy who's going to be here and is going to be their bread-and-butter."
Jim Langford, with Spirit Architecture, said Monday the company would have no comment on the decision to terminate the contract.
Robert Barrett, president of Smith-Doyle Contractors, was ill Monday and could not be reached, according to a company employee who answered the phone.
The county has paid Spirit Architecture about $1.2 million for design work on the expansion and will be able to use those plans going forward, Deakins said. The county has paid Smith-Doyle Contractors about $60,000. Deakins said if a new construction manager can be hired in the next few weeks, construction on the project could begin around the end of this year or in early 2024. The time needed to complete construction of the expansion has been estimated at about 18 months.
The county will consider whether to proceed with the original concept or with a scaled-down version after a new construction manager is hired, Deakins said.
Willie Leming, justice of the peace for District 13, said he thinks a local construction manager may provide better results.
"We need to keep all this local," Leming said. "I know some local contractors who tell me they didn't feel like they were given a real opportunity to bid on this."
Leming said he wants to see the project completed.
"We need this," he said.
Beth Coger is justice of the peace for District 9 and has been a frequent critic of the jail expansion project. Coger has argued the county should implement proposals for pretrial services that could reduce or eliminate the need for more jail space.
"They just need to drop that," Coger said of the jail expansion project. "It's dead in the water, and it has been for months."
The county should weigh the cost of the jail expansion against the cost and benefits of pretrial services and a reduction in the jail population, Coger said.
"It's not just the cost of the pretrial services," Coger said. "We need to consider the savings from not having to house all those people in the jail."
Cantrell said recently the jail population reached an all-time high of 834. It was 804 on Monday. The jail has a design capacity of about 710 but an operating capacity at around 580 due to the legal requirements to separate different classifications of detainees. When the population exceeds the operating capacity, detainees are made to sleep on mats on the floor.
The $20 million expansion plan was approved by the Quorum Court in December after voters rejected a $100 million jail expansion plan and a sales tax increase to pay for it in the November general election.
Jail expansion
The Washington County Quorum Court appropriated about $19.8 million for a jail expansion project, which is meant to improve the jails facilities for dealing with covid-19 and other potential health threats.
The expansion plan called for adding about 136 beds for women detainees, adding 14,000 to 15,000 square feet. A second building, later proposed for possible elimination to reduce the projects cost, would have provided 96 beds for men in about 10,000 square feet. The project also included expanding the jails intake area and medical space. Other parts of the expansion include space for jail administration, enlarging the courtroom at the jail and adding storage space.
Source: Washington County