by Ainsley Platt, Arkansas Advocate
April 4, 2025

The state prisons board on Thursday approved sending out a request for general contractors to submit proposals to build a new prison in Franklin County.

According to documents provided to the board, the Department of Corrections will begin advertising the request on April 8, with a deadline for submitting proposals on April 22. 

The department is aiming to receive approval from the Division of Building Authority in June. Also in June, the department plans to bring the project to the Arkansas Legislative Council for review.

Early sitework is proposed to start in September, with the start of construction for the planned 3,000-bed prison in January 2026. 

The board also voted to appoint an executive committee to review the proposals and oversee the overall design process for the prison.

The executive committee will have “approval and decision-making authority” in the interest of making decisions about the proposed prison “expeditiously,” according to documents provided by the board.

“These decisions will not carry cost impacts until we have designed to the approved budget,” a document about the committee read. Department of Corrections spokesperson Rand Champion said committee members would be selected later.

Arkansas Senate rejects prison appropriation bill for second time

The committee will submit the designs for each design phase to the Board of Corrections for approval. Once the budget is finalized, any changes that would impact the cost by more than $250,000 would require additional approval from the board, something that board chair Benny Magness expressed satisfaction with.

“That’s more than adequate to me,” Magness told officials from Vanir Construction Management Inc., which the board retained to oversee the firm selected to build the prison.

The board did not spend long discussing the prison, but briefly talked about utilities — specifically, how drinking water and wastewater service would be established for the prison, which is proposed for a rural part of Franklin County. Opponents of the prison site have criticized its selection for a lack of adequate infrastructure.

Vanir officials discussed potentially building pipelines to bring in drinking water from Fort Smith; a wastewater pipeline is receiving similar consideration. Meetings with the city of Fort Smith about the matter would be happening on Friday, said Mike Beaber, the regional director for Vanir. Being able to pipe wastewater to Fort Smith instead of building a treatment facility on-site would allow builders to “put that money back into” the prison.

“Nothing is off the table,” Beaber said.

A $750 million appropriation bill needed to fund the prison’s construction failed to pass the state Senate for the third consecutive day Thursday.

In addition to the Franklin County prison, the board also raised the budget of a bed expansion at a work-release unit in Mississippi County by $4 million, which brought it up to $6.3 million. It had originally approved a $2.3 million budget in 2022, but multiple changes in the design have led to delays. The original budget called for adding 50 beds; the project now calls for 100 beds.

“We’ve still done nothing?” Magness asked. A department official confirmed that was the case.

Now, the estimated cost of the planned expansion is $5.6 million.

Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.

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