Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Residents and county officers, including Houghton County Clerk Jennifer Kelly (second from left), Commissioner Gretchen Janssen (fourth from left), Commissioner Roy Britz (fourth from right) and Planning Commissioner Horst Schmidt (third from right) tour a potential site Thursday for a complex including the Houghton County Jail, 97th District Court, sheriff’s office and work camp, with potential for others. The jail would be built behind the existing building.

HOUGHTON — Houghton County Board members and residents toured a prospective site for a new county jail, district court, sheriff’s office and other offices before a work session Thursday.

The First Apostolic Lutheran Church site on Sharon Avenue in Houghton is for sale, as the congregation plans to build a bigger church on Gundlach Road. The board made no additional decisions at the work session following the tour, but laid out steps that would need to be taken before any purchasing agreement.

Commissioners Roy Britz and Gretchen Janssen planned to talk with the church about setting a price on the property, which includes about five acres.

To determine the size needed, Britz and Chair Al Koskela will meet with the sheriff and jail administrator to discuss what future needs they project for the jail.

At its February meeting, the board authorized $3,000 to $5,000 for U.P. Engineers & Architects to determine how the county could use the space. The 14,000-square-foot building is being considered for the sheriff’s office, work camp, district court, and potentially offices such as the county clerk. Architect Karin Cooper said the work is expected to take two to three weeks.

The new jail would be located behind the church, including on part of the current rear parking lot.

In conversations last year, the church had given a price of $1.1 million, Janssen said. With a strong real estate market in the area, that price could be higher.

Britz said he had recently talked with church member John Paul Pietila, who led a tour of the building Thursday. He said the church board will meet soon to determine a price.

Board members compared the site favorably to the two other locations under consideration: the property off of Evergreen Street, and county-owned land on Dodge Street across from the courthouse.

“The existing building that can be utilized already, access to Sharon Avenue,” Britz said. “Utilities … flat, level, ready to go.”

Since most of the space is open, there would be limited demolition required to convert it to county offices, Britz said.

“I would think the configuration in a place like this would be a lot more practical than how it is now,” Janssen said. “Some offices are pretty small and windowless.”

The Evergreen Drive property was quoted last year at around $400,000, Anderson said. There is no pre-existing structure there, and it also needs fill to make it level. Britz said the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) may also have to look at the site to see if there is a wetlands issue.

Using the county-owned lot on Dodge Street would leave the courthouse without a place to dump snow in the winter, Britz said. Unlike the other two sites, it would also leave no room for expansion.

Vice Chair Tom Tikkanen said the Sharon Avenue site, “from a common-sense perspective, is much preferred to everything else.” However, he wanted to see a sale price finalized first. And without solid details on what the project will include, voters are likely to reject it, he said.

The county has made three prior efforts to build a replacement for the jail, most recently a proposed addition behind the courthouse that was narrowly defeated in 2018.

That jail would have been able to house about 60 inmates for medium and maximum security, and another 50 in the work camp area, Cooper said. The total square footage would have been about 16,000 square feet.

Unlike the courthouse addition, the Sharon Avenue site would have room for expansion. With that in mind, the jail and work camp could be smaller than the 2018 proposal to start, with more added on later if necessary, Anderson said.

While overcrowding had been a frequent issue before COVID-19, reforms at the state level could reduce inmate population even once the pandemic is over, Britz said.

Jail populations had been in the 40s at some points in the previous four years before dropping to the mid-20s last year, Britz said. He foresees a movement towards more sentences that call for people to report to the jail for work rather than being housed there.

Even with lower inmate numbers, the need for a more modern facility than the nearly 60-year-old jail is still pressing, Janssen said.

“It really isn’t about size, I think,” she said. “The fact is we need a new jail just because of the technology and how outdated the current jail is. And that’s not safe. It’s not safe for the sheriff, and the deputies, and the inmates and the public in general.”

Purchasing the Sharon Avenue site would be contingent on county voters approving a millage to pay for the purchase and construction, board members said. To qualify for the August ballot, the county would need to file ballot language for a millage by May 11.

Cooper said if a millage were approved, design would likely take about six months, with construction taking about a year, she said.

The Apostolic church has not broken ground on its new building yet, meaning it could be in the Sharon Avenue site for a year and a half to two years, Janssen said.

If necessary, the county could start building the jail first, which would enable the church to hold services until the new one is complete, Koskela said.