FAYETTEVILLE -- Washington County has chosen Hight Jackson as the architect and Nabholz Construction as the construction manager to work on the Washington County Jail expansion.
Both firms are local entities and will maintain a local partnership, a press release issued Tuesday says.
The county opened four responses in September from firms wanting to be the construction manager on the $20 million project. The companies submitting proposals were: Baldwin & Shell of Springdale, Flintco of Springdale, Nabholz Construction of Rogers and Chris Woods Construction Co. of Memphis, Tenn.
County Judge Patrick Deakins ended the county's contract with Smith-Doyle Contractors of Cordova, Tenn., the first construction manager on the project, in August after the covid-related jail expansion was put out for bids twice and the county received little or no interest on some of the bid packages. Deakins and Sheriff Jay Cantrell both said they hoped a local construction management firm would attract more local builders to the project.
The Quorum Court agreed to spend $19.8 million in December for a jail expansion project. The county is using American Rescue Plan Act money to pay for the jail addition.
The Quorum Court approved the scaled-back plan after voters rejected a $100 million jail expansion plan and a sales tax increase to pay for it in the November general election.
According to the county, covid-19 has substantially affected the operations of the Washington County Detention Center in a variety of ways, such as the difficulty of social distancing and the quarantining of healthy or diagnosed detainees and staff in a crowded facility.
The virus also has hindered the detention center's ability to house female detainees who have tested positive due to limited housing areas for female detainees, the release states.