The Starke County Commissioners were brought up to date on the activities of the Starke County Jail Committee last week. Commissioner Kathy Norem, who heads up the committee, introduced Scott Cherry, Account Executive with the Skillman Corporation, a construction management firm with headquarters in Indianapolis and a regional office in Merrillville.
Skillman has managed 500 public projects in the state of Indiana. They will work with the architectural and financial firms on the project.
The committee selected the Skillman Corporation to manage the jail project and Cherry talked about the first phase of the project.
“That’s when your professionals get together and Skillman’s part in that is to work with your professional program, going over the programs that you’re going to use, helping to provide costs for different scenarios, the site selection, putting together an entire program schedule, and that not only outlines the construction portion but all of the important phases leading up to the bid time,” said Cherry.
State Senator Jim Arnold, who went through a jail building project when he was Sheriff in LaPorte County, advised the Committee recently to build outside the city of Knox. Cherry talked about site selection if a new jail is built.
“You may have different areas that you want to consider to build the building and those sites could be influenced by different factors. Those include infrastructure and if there are utilities up to the site and there could be the possibility of renovating the project. There is a possibility of looking at other buildings to see if it’s possible to convert those into a jail.”
The Starke County Jail Committee will meet again in the near future to discuss more options available in the jail project.
