TOLEDO, Ohio — Lucas County commissioners announced Thursday they plan to break ground on a long-awaited new county jail by the end of the year. The commissioners said they have chosen a downtown site for the new jail, though they declined to say exactly where it will be built.
The announcement came as commissioners met Gov. Mike DeWine at the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio, where the governor said Lucas County would get $10 million in grant funding for the new jail project.
Ohio plans to award $50 million statewide in grants for jails across the state. The grants are intended to fund construction, renovation and safety improvement projects to nearly a dozen local jails.
“I can’t express enough gratitude to the governor and the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction for their support of the county’s plans to deliver a facility that meets the needs of the community and will allow us to provide a safe environment for pre-trial inmates who are housed in the new jail and for our corrections officers who work there,” Lucas County Sheriff Mike Navarre said in a press release issued Thursday.
Lucas County officials have worked for years to come up with a plan to replace the county's Spielbusch Avenue jail, which opened in 1977. For decades the county has operated under a federal consent decree to reduce inmate population at the overcrowded facility and more recently officials have pointed out its structural deficiencies that don't allow for direct supervision of prisoners.
The grant is a step toward fulfilling a commitment, Lucas County Commissioner Tina Skeldon Wozniak said.
"We're certainly getting hurt a bit with inflation rates and new construction rates, and supply chain costs. So there are a lot of hurdles, but we're committed to not only the workforce but to be able to have a building they feel safe in," Wozniak said. "We have to do more to make sure our population with mental health issues gets the treatment and care and gets out of jail,"
Late in 2022, the commissioners discussed the site of the current Toledo Lucas County Health Department along Erie Street as a potential site for a new jail.
Navarre has said he wants the county to build a new, downtown jail that does not require a tax levy for funding. He also has said he wants the jail to house only pre-trial inmates rather than a combination of prisoners awaiting trial and prisoners serving misdemeanor sentences.
In 2018 the commissioners proposed building a $180 million jail complex along Detroit Avenue in north Toledo that would have included pre-trial inmates, post-conviction prisoners and a behavioral health solutions center.
The Detroit Avenue location was the third recent site county officials chose for the new jail after public outcry about two previous sites in south Toledo forced them to scrap plans and continue searching for a place to build the new jail.
But officials have discussed new jail sites off and on for years. In 2003 the commissioners briefly discussed building a new jail inside the wire at the state's Toledo Correctional Institution.
Voters rejected the levy in 2018 that would have funded the new jail planned for Detroit Avenue and, a year later, approved a ballot measure that requires the county to build a new jail downtown.
"The other rest of the money is going to come from the sheriff running and operating a more efficient jail, from learning the lessons of how jails operate from the one that was built in 1977," Lucas County Commissioner Pete Gerken said.
In mid-2020, the commissioners discussed the health department building as a site for a new jail.
In June of that year, the county hired Poggemeyer Design Group to do pre-architectural work on a plan for a jail there. At the time the commissioners said they believed a three- or four-story jail on the health department site would cost about $100 million.
“This project will happen, and this funding is a critical piece to make it work better," Gerken said in the press release. "We appreciate the ODRC and the state for their understanding of our need and for acting accordingly."
Gerken also said the county plans to use the funds in the near future.
"This grant will be used immediately to get construction of the new jail moving," Gerken said. "These funds will not sit idle. At the end of the day, we will build a new county jail sooner, and not later."
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