Sheriff Waters wants to come up with a plan to consolidate all of the Duval Jail facilities and then decide on the location of the new campus.

JACKSONVILLE, Florida. – The multi-million dollar renovation proposal for the Jacksonville Jaguars stadium is currently in the spotlight when it comes to downtown development and the cost to taxpayers, but something else will also take a big bite out of it city ​​taxes in the future. a not-so-distant future: a new prison expected to cost $1 billion.

From the outside, it can be difficult to see the problems that exist inside the Duval County Jail.

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But Darrell Meadows was just released after spending six months in prison for violating his parole, and he said not all the problems came from the physical structure of the prison. News4JAX asked Meadows about the prison and where he thinks it should be moved.

“I think it should be a place where we have a lot of space, but flat. And then I hope they give us, like they have more programs, more activities, that they can bring in the inmates and things like that. That would be wonderful. They're providing more activities during the day, you know, so we're not just cooped up and looking at each other and getting into trouble and stuff like that,” Meadows said.

The city council's special committee reviewing jail issues made its recommendation last month and suggested moving the jail to an area away from the downtown riverfront, while keeping it close to the center -city. Sheriff TK Waters said before that was decided, what needed to happen first was a plan of what the new jail would entail.

“I think we need to design it first and then find a place to put it,” Waters said. “If we find a place that's small and we try to fit something in there, we end up in a six or seven story building, it's not ideal. What we would like to do is have a high rise building with a two level system in separate buildings, one for mental health screening, one for our juveniles, one for our sentenced inmates and one for our prisoners in pre-trial detention and our detainees. our inmates, all separate buildings built on a system like that, and more of a campus-style approach,” Waters said.

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Waters also suggested removing the Montgomery Correctional Center, also known as P-Farm, on the North Side, which has had flooding problems. He would like to consolidate all of Jacksonville's detention facilities into one area.

“I would love to be able to move the prison farm to that area with our condemned inmates as well…and save fuel, save us a lot of money,” Waters said.

The cost of a new prison has been estimated at around $1 billion.

The current prison, opened in 1991, was designed to accommodate 2,000 people. But there are on average more than 2,600 per day. Waters said he would like to see a new facility that could hold up to 4,000 inmates.

A special blue ribbon committee will be formed to consider next steps.

There will still be discussions and discussions and votes, but it's possible that work on a new prison will begin in two or three years somewhere in Jacksonville.