Watch now: Nebraska unveils reimagined Reception and Treatment Center in southwest Lincoln

After greater than a half-decade of planning and months of development, state officers Wednesday unveiled the reimagined Reception and Remedy Heart, which mixes two state prisons into one huge complicated.

Gov. Pete Ricketts and a number of officers with the Nebraska Division of Correctional Companies toured the brand new portion of the power in southwest Lincoln at a non-public occasion Wednesday morning forward of the middle’s official opening Monday.

The construction, constructed on a former car parking zone that used to separate the Lincoln Correctional Heart and the Diagnostic and Analysis Heart on West Van Dorn Avenue, is outfitted with state-of-the-art services that will probably be shared by the populations, mentioned Scott Frakes, who has led the Division of Corrections since 2015.

“This can be a huge day for this division,” Frakes advised a crowd of about two dozen jail officers, development and design representatives and reporters earlier than main a tour of the brand new facility.

Frakes mentioned the complicated “is the proper instance of when you may take, on this case, two previous prisons, rehab them, rework them, add new house, make changes and switch it into one trendy, extremely practical jail. And there is no query that is what we have achieved.”

The brand new construction contains an consumption heart the place practically each man admitted into the state’s jail system will probably be processed earlier than being assigned to a long-term location, be it the State Penitentiary, the Tecumseh State Correctional Establishment or a wing of the Reception and Remedy Heart itself, Frakes mentioned.

Additionally included within the new construction is a 32-bed skilled-nursing facility, 32 behavioral and psychological well being beds, an on-site dentist’s workplace and expanded medical heart, a brand new kitchen, three inmate meals halls, a spacious visiting heart and expanded services for jail workers, together with a health heart and a exercise room.

And the crown jewel of the $125 million venture, Frakes mentioned, is a 384-bed maximum-security wing, which can start to accommodate inmates later this summer season, a growth that ought to assist ease overcrowding on the state’s different prisons, notably on the former Diagnostic and Analysis Heart. 

“That is gonna give us the power to lastly get again all the way down to operational degree, operational capability — even perhaps beneath,” Frakes mentioned, earlier than pausing to knock on the wood lectern he stood behind. “It has been years. Nevertheless it’s time.”

When completed, warden Taggart Boyd mentioned, the brand new wing would be the highest-security jail within the state.

Ricketts, who heralded the work of Frakes and Boyd, mentioned the venture’s completion aligned together with his administration’s primary precedence: to develop Nebraska. The governor mentioned the venture has introduced greater than 200 out-of-state workers from 36 completely different states to work on the new jail.

Frakes credited Ricketts with recognizing the significance of the venture’s preliminary phases — in addition to a looming third section that can come within the type of an extra 96-bed facility on the similar complicated, which can embrace 32 geriatric beds and 64 beds for cognitively impaired or developmentally disabled inmates.

When the 384-bed wing opens later this summer season, Frakes mentioned the Reception and Remedy Heart’s operational capability will broaden to about 1,350 — a determine that won’t be as malleable as inhabitants totals on the State Penitentiary due to American Correctional Affiliation requirements.

As of now, the southwest Lincoln services home roughly 1,105 inmates.

Frakes mentioned the still-in-progress maximum-security services may function a mannequin of kinds for a brand new jail that the director and governor each hope will substitute the ageing penitentiary.

However he was adamant the addition of beds on the Reception and Remedy Heart wouldn’t eradicate the necessity for additional funding within the division, whether or not it comes within the type of a considerable rework on the penitentiary or a brand new jail altogether. Frakes would favor the latter.

“The NSP substitute speaks for itself,” he mentioned. “A method or one other, we’ve to do one thing.”