The prison board, in a reconvened meeting Tuesday, voted to approve plans for construction of a 150,000-square-foot one-story facility with 454 beds in nine housing units, with cells located on the ground floor and a mezzanine. Two of the housing units — apart from adult inmates — are to be designated for as many as 22 juveniles.

The prison — proposed for construction in Blair Township behind the former Inlow’s Drive-In along Dunnings Highway — is also being designed with a large area for medical care and mental health services, a library, meeting space and dedicated areas for religious practices, work release participants, visitations, attorney-client rooms and employee training.

It will also have a laundry that inmates operate as they do in the current facility, county leaders said Tuesday.

Commissioner Dave Kessling, who chairs the prison board, said the plans are subject to change but not significantly.

An artist rendering from architectural/engineering firm GFT show the proposed plans for a new Blair County Prison to be constructed in the Duncansville area off Dunnings Highway. Courtesy photo

“We’re still going through some minor changes because this is a large ticket item for the county and for this prison board,” Kessling said. “We’re looking not only at what the needs are today but also what the needs will be 15 and 20 years down the road.”

The prison board, which met publicly last week and reconvened Tuesday to address the design of a new prison, also met privately last week in executive session.

Kessling said there were “very robust discussions” regarding safety and security issues associated with the design.

GFT, the architectural/engineering firm formed by the merger of Garrett Fleming and TranSystems, the company that acquired the L. Robert Kimball firm of Ebensburg in 2021, is designing the new prison based on a contract county commissioners authorized in April 2025.

TranSystems previously completed a feasibility study of the county’s prison on Mulberry Street and recommended building a structure instead of renovating the current facility. The current prison was built in 1868 and 1869 with subsequent expansions allowing the facility to increase its capacity. Currently, the prison is housing about 300 inmates, with the county paying to house about 20 more at the Centre County Correctional Facility.

In approving the design, the prison board noted that its action is contingent upon the county’s purchase of the proposed site off Dunnings Highway. While commissioners have not yet voted to buy the land, they’ve been in contact for months with representatives of the owner, Pennsylvania Terminals Corp.

In October, commissioners sent a letter to the corporation proposing the purchase of two parcels totaling 83.25 acres for $585,000, with terms that included completion of a wetland assessment, geotechnical testing, boundary/topographic survey, utility investigation and a Phase 1 environmental assessment.

Kessling said Tuesday that the environmental assessments — including ones that had to wait until the snow melted — generated no concerns. He also said no endangered bat issues surfaced during the completed assessments.

However, commissioners are awaiting information on water and sewer services that a new prison will require. In those evaluations, local agencies will determine if the water system is capable of meeting the proposed prison’s demand and if the sewer system has enough capacity to handle projected wastewater flows.

As for the price of the proposed prison, Kessling credited the prison board for cutting $50 million from GFT’s earlier estimate of $150 million which came to light Tuesday.

Kessling said the $150 million estimate reflected price increases that GFT identified since the February 2025 estimates pegged the expense ranging between $96.27 million and $123.16 million, depending on the selected site.

One of the factors contributing to the $50 million cut, Kessling said, was the removal of a proposed magisterial district court building, featuring a secure hallway between the new prison and the court. The court building was proposed as a replacement for the magistrate court building on Union Street in Hollidaysburg. But it’s no longer in the plans because that helped reduce the $150 million estimate.

“We just couldn’t spend that much,” Kessling said.

District Attorney Pete Weeks, who also sits on the prison board, said Tuesday that he was impressed with the prison design which “seems to take in all the legal requirements that a prison is obligated to give to inmates.”

Weeks, referring to areas where defense attorneys can meet with inmates, said that should improve the pace of court proceedings involving case reviews.

For lack of having a conference room at the jail, inmates typically need time to confer in court with their attorneys who then have to confer with the DA who may be addressing another case.

Weeks also said he appreciated the proposed prison’s accommodations of juveniles in light of juvenile crimes increasing over the last six to seven years.

Blair County has no juvenile detention facility, so it’s not unusual for local police to return arrested juveniles to their homes while efforts are made to identify a facility where an arrested juvenile can be held.

Juveniles facing more serious charges, including ones where they’re charged as adults, are sometimes housed temporarily in Blair County Prison or in prisons outside the county, at an expense to the county. State law requires those juveniles to be kept in areas beyond sight and sound of adult inmates, with monthly court hearings convened to assess compliance and review the case.

“Over the last six to seven years especially, we’ve had a lot of juvenile incidents with guns, juveniles with shootings … four juveniles who murdered another juvenile,” Weeks said. “So the need for (juvenile) housing in this county is significant.”

Controller A.C. Stickel, who was chairing the prison board in early 2020 when county leaders started talking about building a new prison, said Tuesday that he was ready to approve the prison design and build.

“It’s a cheaper option than trying to retrofit what we already have,” Stickel said.

The design indicates that the single story facility will feature a mezzanine and two tiers of cells with no elevators. Handicapped inmates would be housed on the ground floor.

“It looks more like a school than a prison,” Stickel said of the computerized drawing that GFT provided to county personnel.

He also noted that the vote in favor of the design is contingent upon the county’s purchase of the site, but should keep the project moving.

“Adopting this today will allow us potentially to break ground at the beginning of the year, but it’s not a guarantee,” he added.

Commissioners Laura Burke and Amy Webster, who also sit on the prison board, added their votes in favor of the prison design.

“This is long overdue,” said Webster, who joined the meeting by phone.

While the county is expected to afford a new prison through a bond issue borrowing that would be paid off over several years, Burke mentioned that the county has American Rescue Plan Act dollars set aside to use for purchasing the land where the prison would be built.

In early 2025, commissioners took steps toward building a new prison on land off West Plank Road, next to the Alto Reste Cemetery. But they subsequently backed away in light of public sentiment for building a prison next to the cemetery on acreage designed as future burial grounds.

The proposed site off Dunnings Highway consists of undeveloped woodland except for a powerline that crosses from the eastern edge to the northern corner. County records show the site is zoned as industrial.

Kessling said the GFT’s plans indicate that lighting of the site can be directed downward and thereby, prevent it from affecting neighboring properties.

Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 814-946-7456