A construction team led by Providence, Rhode Island-based Gilbane Building Co. topped out a 250,000 square foot facility in Lake County, Ohio, that will serve as a sheriff’s office and a correctional facility, according to a news release from the contractor. The cost of the project is $205 million, according to Project Management Consultants, the owner’s representative on the job.
The Lake County Public Safety Center, located in Painesville, Ohio, will sit across the street from the city’s existing jail on East Erie Street, per Gilbane. It will have inmate supervision, treatment programs and medical care capabilities.
Alongside Gilbane on the design-build team is Cleveland-based K2M Design, and Painesville contractor Lakeland, The Construction Group. The project broke ground in November 2024, according to an announcement from Lakeland.
The new facility will eventually replace the jail, according to a September 2024 news release from the city. Gilbane confirmed to Construction Dive that the old jail will be demolished.
Over the past few years, contractors across the country have nabbed lucrative contracts building jails. Skanska, for example, was selected for a $312 million women’s prison in New Jersey in October, while Nabholz Construction and JE Dunn were picked to build a proposed $825 million, 3,000-bed prison in Arkansas.
And in February, Tutor Perini revealed the Manhattan jail it was constructing — one of four that will replace the infamous Riker's Island — would cost $3.8 billion.
In the past five years, Gilbane’s team has completed $1.7 billion-worth of work across 29 projects in what it calls justice and public safety projects, per the firm’s website. These builds comprise courthouses, correctional facilities and crime labs, including the Franklin County Corrections Center in Ohio and the Village of Oswego police station in Oswego, Illinois.
