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State officials are pushing onward with the reopening of the Illinois Youth Center in Joliet as a first-ever facility for severely mentally ill inmates amid pressure from a 2007 federal lawsuit.
DLR Group, a Chicago-based architectural firm, began work April 1 on a feasibility study of the site, just one week after Gov. Pat Quinn first proposed during his annual budget address in Springfield reopening the Joliet youth prison. The study carries a $20,000 price tag.
At the time of Quinn’s budget proposal, aides said the project’s future was dependent on lawmakers making permanent the state’s 2011 income tax hike. However, the Illinois Department of Corrections also is under pressure to repurpose the facility because of a federal lawsuit alleging the state has failed to provide adequate mental health services within an overcrowded prison system.
In an attempt to settle the case, the Illinois Department of Corrections has agreed with a court-appointed monitor to repurpose the 484-bed facility on McDonough Street to provide services for mentally ill offenders, including long-term, residential in-patient care.
The monitor said officials would need to have the Joliet facility reopened “as soon as possible, and certainly within the next 18 months,” according to state purchasing documents dated March 27.
About $1.7 million has been earmarked in the budget this year to begin converting the facility to a new use and $30 million would be needed in the following budget year for operational costs and to transfer inmates to the facility.
Dave Blanchette, spokesman for the governor’s office, said the funding for the renovations will come through the Capital Development Board, but operational costs needed each year thereafter are contingent upon the income tax hike staying permanent.
The state was able to hire the DLR architectural firm through an “emergency purchase affidavit,” exempting the state from going through the required 14-day solicitation period, according to documents.
The architectural firm’s report will include recommendations on construction scheduling, divisions of work and level of design sufficient to allow competitive bidding and minimal change orders while achieving the earliest possible completion date.
The governor’s office estimates the total cost to repurpose the facility at about $9 million. However, Jake Davis, justice and civic sector project leader at DLR Group, said Tuesday that estimate could change as the firm calculates additional costs associated with mechanical code and accessibility requirements.
The state also hired DLR Group in spring 2012 through an emergency purchase to renovate areas of the Illinois Youth Center in St. Charles ahead of the state’s initial shutdown of IYC Joliet. The renovations were in preparation of the state relocating the 132 maximum security prisoners in Joliet to the IYC in St. Charles.
The Joliet facility on McDonough Street was one of several youth centers, prisons and other state facilities closed last year as part of budget cuts and prison restructuring.