New halfway house plans detailed
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By Ann McGlynn | Monday, December 10, 2007 |
The latest in the criminal justice building boom in downtown Davenport will eliminate the waiting list for the area’s convicts who request or are required to stay in a halfway house, the leader of the Department of Correctional Services for the Iowa Quad-City region said Monday.
A new, $10.5 million building, set to be completed in August 2009, will be built to the north of the problem-plagued facility that now has approximately 84 beds, said Jim Wayne, supervisor for the district that includes Scott, Clinton, Muscatine, Jackson and Cedar counties. The new center will house 120 people.
It is the latest multimillion-dollar investment in crime-related buildings in downtown Davenport. The $29.7 million Scott County Jail moved its first inmate into its expansion Monday, the $20.3 million Davenport police station opened in September, and the $14 million renovation of the federal courthouse was completed in 2006.
The current building, with mold problems exacerbated by humid weather, “wasn’t built as a planned correctional facility,” Wayne said. It was built as a hotel.
The new building will be six stories high, with mostly double-occupancy rooms and a few single rooms, Wayne said. Residents will be separated into male and female units.
The average length of stay is about four months, Wayne said. The wait list now is 40 to 50 people and about nine months.
The facility, one of two halfway houses in Davenport, will house offices for nonresidential criminals who are on parole or probation, he said. More meeting space will be available as well.
The money for the project was approved by the Iowa Legislature in 2004, Wayne said. The groundbreaking marks the end of a long, and sometimes controversial, process to find a site for the building. One possible site, the former Sears building on West Fourth Street, drew significant criticism and was abandoned as a possibility.
The closest neighbor to the new center is Palmer College of Chiropractic, which will establish a clinical care outreach center in the new facility, officials said.
“We are constantly looking for opportunities to work with others to strengthen the Quad-Cities,” said Larry Patten, Palmer College chancellor. “Palmer College has a long-standing commitment to Davenport and the downtown area, and this is another example of our dedication to serving this community.”
Kurt Wood, executive dean of clinic affairs for Palmer, said the college is “pleased” with the arrangement.
“Through our clinical presence in the center, our doctors of chiropractic and chiropractic interns will be able to provide chiropractic care and related health care services to the residents of this new facility.”
One person who won’t attend the groundbreaking is Davenport Alderman Ray Ambrose.
He has railed against the 7th Judicial District’s plans since the beginning and said whether located downtown, up on Main Street or anywhere in Davenport city limits, it doesn’t belong.
“They should have looked outside of Davenport,” he said, noting the district houses prisoners from five counties. “We’re already dealing with habitual felons and offenders so much that our poor police department can barely stay on top of it.
“I think we should be building more prisons and keeping the habitual felons locked up. All they do is destroy our communities and become a huge burden on the taxpayers.”
Ambrose said he’s surprised more Davenport residents aren’t up in arms about the cost, scale and location of the halfway house.
“The bottom line is, here we are building a Taj Mahal for felons in our central city with the 7th Judicial District letting them out of prison early to finish out their prison sentences 200 feet from Central High School. And 30 percent of them are sex offenders,” he said. “I can’t believe that if the people of Davenport were aware of that, they’d be embracing it.”
(Reporter Tory Brecht contributed to this report.)
Ann McGlynn can be contacted at (563) 383-2336 or amcglynn@qctimes.com.
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