Justice Design News recently met with Jeff Goodale, director of HOK’s global Civic + Justice group, to discuss his thoughts on the massive Wayne County Criminal Justice Center project in Detroit.
The dynamic new facility includes a 2,280-bed adult detention building, 160-bed juvenile detention building, a new criminal courthouse with 29 courtrooms, an administrative building for the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office and Prosecutor’s Office, plus a central utility plant—and sprawls across just over one million square feet of space.
JDN: What was the biggest design challenge from your end, and how did you approach it?
GOODALE: This job was developer-led. Bedrock made the arrangement with Wayne County to build the new facility, and in exchange, Bedrock got the land downtown that they wanted on this. It was a different driver as far as the developer doing the project for the county, rather than the county driving it themselves.
For this project, the county and the developer had different priorities. The developer had a certain amount of money to build the facility. On the other side, the county was interested in the long-term, 50-year operational model to use at the justice center.
With those priorities in mind, we worked with the users to delve into their real needs while meeting the pre-established budget that encompassed the overall big picture of the project. The meetings with users got into the details, conforming all of their visions into one cohesive project. That was the biggest challenge.
JDN: Do you think there were any major current trends reflected in the design of the Justice Center?
GOODALE: I’ll take each of the four main components. One is that the county’s previous arrangements had the prosecutor’s office and, to a degree, the sheriff’s office and some associated secure facilities together with the courthouse. But these are more like office buildings, so they still had security needs, but not at the same level. We moved those into a different, more traditional office building.
Our goal with this move was to save money and make it more convenient for the public to come and go from the facility. In the old courthouse, they had to go through the same security line as everybody to get to the prosecutor’s office, which didn’t seem necessary.
We designed the courthouse to be a very specific building without additional functions to it. We made the building purer to its mission, which was to conduct criminal court hearings and trials. We made one universal security queue that is easier and faster for people to get through. It’s more stringent in the courthouse. Then, when you get to the jail and the juvenile facilities, they’re even more stringent—as they should be.
On the jail side, we transitioned to direct supervision for the adult detention and added 188 assigned mental health beds out of 2,280 total beds, with adjacent medical facilities. For the jail, we also created a dedicated short tunnel area that connects inmates to the courthouse when they need to go to trial.
On the juvenile side, although the space is designed as a short-term facility, we’re finding that the population may need longer-term stays. The level of security that we designed into the facility was appropriate, but we’re still learning every day what it’s like to manage modern youth in these facilities. This is a challenging group of older youth—more violent, more prone to vandalism, and more prone to assault. Creating a facility around that and helping staff design it has been an interesting prospect. During the design process, you have to help staff not only predict what’s going to work but also determine contingency plans or flexibility in case things don’t work exactly the way you expected.
JDN: Were there certain areas that you needed to focus on this flexibility more than others, in terms of future expansion or change?
GOODALE: We put a great deal of effort into how we approached housing for both juveniles and adults. For the mental health beds in the adult detention center, we included a more open officer station. The county has added taller windows around the station to make it more secure.
We’ve also worked with the county post-occupancy on determining the right approach to implementing any modifications. Will these updates change how you operate the locks, for example? How do state laws impact any design considerations for juvenile detention centers? We explore those questions.
The whole goal is to make facilities more normalized and progressive. And at the same time, different residents are requiring us to increase security. The challenge for HOK and others is to make these facilities more normalized and rehabilitative as well as secure.
JDN: Normative is such a big buzzword that everybody talks about now. What do you think is the key to balancing making things normative and rehabilitative and at the same time safe and secure for everyone?
GOODALE: One of the areas you have an immediate good impact is for more daylight into the living space, but that can impact costs for bigger windows and added security. In that case, we can incorporate a thermal window with a secure barrier that looks like a bug screen and fits inside the glass to let more light shine through.
We can also add durable carpet and raise the ceilings to add a more standard commercial acoustical tile. This also helps with cost, because detention products are typically five times more costly than their commercial counterparts.
JDN: Did you have any partners or suppliers in that area, with products like windows or furnishings or any other areas?
GOODALE: The detention contracting team is a combination of CML and Pauly Jail. They were involved in outfitting the whole facility and furniture selection. The furniture mainly came from Cortech for the day room, seating, and other spaces.
JDN: Did you have a favorite space in terms of the design that was the most satisfying or interesting to complete?
GOODALE: The central lobby, which conducts security screening for everybody that is then communicated with all the different buildings, turned out really well. It’s a big space, and we’re able to process a lot of people very efficiently and safely in and out of the facility.
For the sheriff’s and prosecutor’s offices, we put them in a great office environment with views of downtown Detroit.
In the adult detention center, the housing is very different than what the county had before. In the juvenile detention center, we incorporated a classroom and gym within the juvenile housing unit, which were separated by long corridors in the county’s previous facility. This improved safety and gave the juveniles quicker access to these spaces, along with a large gym and specialty classrooms on the top floor.
JDN: Tell me a bit more about the key players on the project?
GOODALE: Barton Malow was the general contractor, the CM. Rick Bruining (then of Barton Malow, now with Bell Construction) was a key player, as well as Steve Ocaña, who ran the project for Barton Malow at the site.
I mentioned CML Pauly before. Other larger contractors on the team with Barton Malow included Motor City Electric (an electrical contractor), and Limbach (the mechanical contractor). The project delivery was a construction manager-at-risk, but we ran it like a design-build project. Everyone was very involved in developing the budgets and criteria and working together on the project.
The Wayne County Sheriff’s Department, the courts, the courts’ administration, and key Wayne County stakeholders were also instrumental in making the project successful.
JDN: Anything else you’d want to share with the industry about any parts of the project?
GOODALE: In addition to the four facilities we’ve been discussing (the criminal courthouse, adult and juvenile detention buildings, and administrative building for the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office and Prosecutor’s Office), we also designed a new headquarters for the Facility Management team within the Criminal Justice Center, as well as the central utility plant that was completed in collaboration with DTE Energy. That central plant runs all these facilities. Any of these four buildings could have been a project by itself.
We also put a lot of thought into how we have central control in the jail, but there’s also a central control in the court. The central control of the jail could take over the court if needed. You have to figure out every detail for those security protocols.
JDN: What about the high-tech security elements of the project?
GOODALE: We incorporated a lot of high-tech elements with Accurate Control as our security electronics partner under CML. The center has 360-degree cameras that help the county capture more data. Where we typically would have used 1,000 cameras, on this campus we incorporated about 600. We actually had more coverage with a lot fewer cameras, which means less maintenance for the county down the road.
JDN: What kind of feedback have you received from the client and users of the facility?
GOODALE: We’ve received good feedback. People appreciate being in a new facility. I have a weekly meeting with the county to tackle any challenges and think about new things that might have emerged. As I mentioned, you’re designing for the future. Once everyone moves in, some changes might be needed. We’ve been working with the county on nailing these things down, and overall, they’ve been very happy to move into a new facility.
We’ve also won important AIA Design Awards with this facility that your typical justice project isn’t always in line for. It has had a really positive impact on the community.
Photo Credits: HOK and Angie McMonigal Photography
