Consultants: County jail needs renovations, replacement

LACONIA — The county jail needs to be completely repaired or replaced, county commissioners learned this week.

Consultants Dennis Morin and Graham Vickers, of SMRT Architects & Engineers, a firm which has designed numerous correctional facilities, said aspects of the corrections facility should be addressed to bring the jail up to industry standards.

“A jail is a heavily-used building — it’s like an elementary school, it gets beat up,” Vickers told commissioners on Monday night. 

The original Belknap County Jail was constructed in 1890, and has been expanded or renovated in 1954, 1978, 1988, and 2014. A low-security community corrections facility was built in 2018, and isn’t in need of improvement. It’s the older portion of the facility — the jail — which is subject to discussion regarding renovation and eventual replacement.

“This is the beginning of a process,” County Administrator Debra Shackett said Thursday. “We do recognize that the jail needs to be addressed.”

That process is ongoing, and likely won’t amount to much any time soon. County commissioners are beginning to develop their budget recommendations for 2026-27, and may choose to include some capital improvement items for the jail. For some of the most pressing issues, consultants estimate between $1 million and $1.5 million of spending is needed. 

Those improvements could include replacing windows to keep water from getting into the facility, and rebalancing air and water systems. 

“Anything that you two gentlemen think are really, really urgent, in terms of safety and liability issues, those are the ones the commissioners would have to get working on first,” County Commission Chair Peter Spanos said, referring to items impacting both staff and residents.

Principal among Morin’s concerns, apparently, were leaking doors and windows, which he said could translate to life safety issues, like mold growth.

“I would put that on your list to focus on,” he told Commissioners Spanos, Glen Waring and Stephen Hodges on Monday night at the Belknap County Complex.

Other serious issues, like building accessibility for guards, and broken or opaque interior partitions so corrections officers aren’t able to see where they’re headed to next, are items of concern. 

“The building is pretty inefficient from a staff perspective,” Morin said. 

Plumbing was another issue highlighted in the report. Inmate shower stalls in the jail are in “pretty rough shape,” a lot of the toilets are too, and there’s blocked drain lines in the facility. 

“Our recommendation is to bite that first, most-immediate-issues bullet,” Vickers said.

The total list of improvements is long and expensive, totaling about $8.2 million if the county were to address them all immediately. But a new jail could cost almost $50 million.

Consultants met with county administrators multiple times while developing their analysis that a jail is needed.

“That’s the end goal, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon,” Shackett said.

Making phased improvements to the jail could expand its life another 10 years or so, and a conversation regarding construction of a new jail would have to begin at some point along that timeline. To start, a formal planning process would be created. For county leaders, the problem is a tough nut to crack.

Developing a formal planning process hasn’t yet been discussed. The key question: what makes sense to spend money on immediately, and how much? 

While the American Correctional Association sets guidelines for best practices, there’s nothing legally binding about those guidelines, and therefore no enforcement.

“What I can tell you is, it is hard to do work in these facilities,” Vickers said.

From a contractor’s perspective, Vickers said, working in a correctional facility is slow and it isn’t easy. Whereas on typical job sites, workers are free to come and go as needed, in a jail, there’s the added level of security, which limits contractor movement and slows down progress.

“When you work in these facilities and you’re in the secure perimeter, it takes a lot more effort to get the work done,” Morin said. 

Hodges asked the consultants if building a new jail would help limit operational costs, referring to an earlier statement by Vickers, who noted the most expensive aspect of operating a jail is staffing expenses, not necessarily the initial construction. 

Morin said a new facility could limit operational costs, particularly if fewer staff were needed or if overtime hours could be reduced. 

Even if the county completed all of the recommended work over a period of four or five years, they’d still be left with a building that doesn’t meet ACA guidelines, Morin told commissioners. 

“If you love the building and want to be here forever, then you can live with that building and we can do all these things and keep maintaining it, and it’ll still function,” Morin said. “A facility designed for your use will be much more efficient, just from every perspective.”

“But it will still, in 25 years, require this type of work,” Vickers said.