Ellettsville residents are asking commissioners to build the jail elsewhere

ELLETTSVILLE — Long before land along Indian Road 46 west of Bloomington became a possible site for a new Monroe County Jail, several projects were proposed — a mall, a hospital, a grocery store, apartments and even a Meijer supercenter — but never came to fruition .

County officials are currently considering purchasing 43 acres at the intersection of State Road and Hunter Valley Road. They hope to build a criminal justice center on the property that will house the jail, sheriff’s office and courts and other criminal justice offices.

‘The Perfect Blank Slate’: Ellettsville Residents Ask ‘Why This Site?’

During a June 5 community meeting held at the Ellettsville fire station, the three county commissioners heard from area residents who did not want the jail anywhere near their town, even though the site is miles away from the eastern edge of Ellettsville. About 50 people took part in it.

The entire project could cost more than $160 million. Once a location is determined and plans are finalized, construction of the prison will take at least two years. Related offices would be built simultaneously. “If we start now, it will take three years off the jail time,” said County Commissioners Chair Julie Thomas.

She called the location a “perfect blank slate” – it faces the highway, is within walking distance of the hospital and has easy access to utilities. The on-site sewage treatment plant, installed when it appeared a new IU Health hospital would be built there, sits unused.

Other locations – on municipal land along Fullerton Pike, at the city’s Hopewell development and on county-owned land at the old Thomson plant site on the city’s southwest side – were considered and rejected as potential sites.

Last year, city officials blocked off the Fullerton Pike area. The Hopewell site is zoned for affordable housing, and neighbors disagree with Thomson’s land, which has other development issues. “This,” Thomas said, referring to the so-called North Park property, “is where we are focused right now.”

The county received one land value assessment; Thomas said she didn’t know the amount. He is waiting for the results of the second one.

When a resident asked Thomas if the city’s position on the Fullerton Pike land might change since Bloomington has a new mayor, Thomas replied, “We can’t force them to do that.”

The county has been slow to move forward, delaying the project for years under threat of a federal lawsuit over poor conditions at the 40-year-old county jail atop the Zietlow Justice Center. Officials say they will not invest tens of millions of dollars to renovate the deteriorating prison, despite pleas from advocates opposing a new facility in favor of modernizing the current one.

Over and over again, in meeting after meeting, prison officials described an outdated facility that was beyond repair. They reiterated that stance during a June 5 meeting after social worker Donyel Byrd insisted the current prison was worth saving, in part because of its proximity to downtown services that prisoners need to have access to upon release.

Thomas assured meeting participants that anyone released from prison would be given a ride to a treatment center or wherever they requested. She suggested the prison might have a transit vehicle or a plan for Uber or Lyft drivers to transport released inmates to Bloomington.

“We will get people where they need to go,” Thomas said.

Prison project liaison Corey Grass chimed in.

“We don’t want them wandering aimlessly with nowhere to go or anything to do,” he said. This has prompted citizens to suggest that the county reconsider its plan to develop a park on land already purchased by the county and located near the proposed jail site.

Stoneybrook residents say it’s not in our backyard

Several residents of the Stoneybrook neighborhood, northwest of where county officials are considering building a jail, said they feared for the safety of their children and the decline in property values. “No one,” said one woman, “wants this prison in our backyard. We don’t want to see a prison and this complex there.”

– replied Tomasz. “I definitely hear that. This is a real problem. We certainly take it seriously.” She said engineering and soil investigations are ongoing at the site. “We will keep you updated.”

County Councilmember Marty Hawk represents the Ellettsville area. He wants a prison built in the city on the Thomson land.

“County elected officials purchased this space for a criminal justice campus,” she said. “Why do we listen to neighbors who don’t want to go to jail, but we don’t listen to these neighbors? We don’t want that here.”

Previous plans to develop this place fell through

Steve Crider, owner of the North Park land, explained his failed attempts at developing the land at the meeting. He said trade prospects were high before the 2008 recession, after which deals declined.

“We tried a lot of different things,” he said. “Meijer has been here three times and said it was the wrong demographic. They wanted to be on the eastern side. Kroger said no. There were two shopping malls, but they didn’t happen. Neither do apartments.”

He said a few years ago it looked like a new Bloomington hospital would be built on the site, but IU Health changed its plan and moved to the east side. “Having a hospital there would change things dramatically,” Crider said.