DRAPER — The Utah State Prison should be moved to a "more remote, acceptable" location, like maybe Tooele County, says Jon Huntsman Jr., GOP gubernatorial candidate.

Huntsman held a press conference Monday morning near the large gravel pits overlooking the Draper prison to say that the 50-year-old structure is dilapidated, antiquated and no longer fits into the growing, urban county's future. He wants a yearlong study to decide where to move it.

"Economically and socially it makes sense" to move the 3,500 inmates, said Huntsman, who faces Democrat Scott Matheson Jr. in the Nov. 2 election. Huntsman leads Matheson by 10 percentage points in the polls, and Utahns have picked Republicans for governor for the past 20 years.

The prison move won't come cheap, Huntsman said.

Experts have told him a new 4,000-plus-bed prison will cost between $250 million and $300 million. While privatizing prisons should be studied, Huntsman anticipates the new prison would be state-owned and operated.

Matheson said he thinks it's important to do long-range planning for corrections. "And the state corrections department is doing that.

"My concern is that, in the end, this could have a very, very high price tag. When we're talking about crowding on our highways and classrooms, I'd put it first and foremost into classrooms," Matheson said.

Corrections Department spokesman Jack Ford said prison officials welcome a long-term study. But prison bosses are already asking lawmakers to fund a new 288-bed prison in Gunnison, where a satellite prison already operates, and for money to "harden" a currently empty 400-bed dormitory building at Draper, which could then hold medium-security inmates in individual cells.

The state owns 750 acres at the current Draper site, and after that is cleared of prison buildings it could be sold to private interests for residential and commercial use, bringing tens of millions of dollars to the state, says Huntsman. There are also 300 acres of wetlands in the area — and together a thousand-acre public-private design could well serve the county and state for years, he said.

Huntsman wants the 2005 Legislature to fund a feasibility study, and when it comes back in late 2005 he wants the 2006 Legislature to act "and we'll get going on this," he said as large gravel trucks rumbled past him on 14600 South.

While the study will list the best places for a new prison, Huntsman said clearly it must be near major roads, close to the population centers on the Wasatch Front, and be relatively remote, as well, so growing bedroom communities don't overtake it as they have the current Draper prison.

Pressed by reporters, Huntsman said Tooele County seems to fit those requirements. The county has been mentioned before as a site for a new prison, he added.