Firm picked for prison-relocation study

Utah has made one more step in the process for deciding whether or not to move the Utah State Prison from Draper: Who gets to do the feasibility study.

It was a fairly easy step, since only one proposal for the study was received by deadline.

"It basically met everything we were looking for in the (request for proposals)," said Ken Nye, deputy director of the Division of Facilities Construction and Management.

Wikstrom Economic and Planning Consultants Inc., based in Salt Lake City, will have $140,000 and six months to do the study.

The group has extensive experience in performing public planning and economic analysis, according to a news release from DFCM.

An Internet search of the company name revealed studies and estimates by Wikstrom for cities along the Wasatch Front and state and local agencies.

Two notable projects are the Daybreak development in Salt Lake County and the redevelopment of the Geneva Steel property in Utah County.

"We believe that Wikstrom . . . submitted an excellent proposal, and we look forward to working with them to complete the study over the coming months," said D'Arcy Dixon Pignanelli, executive director of the Utah Department of Administrative Services, in the release.

Some areas of the feasibility study, due to begin in two weeks, will go beyond what the division requested, Nye said. One of those areas will be a more comprehensive analysis of prison locations throughout the state.

The study will estimate how much money a sale of the prison property would bring the state, as well as how much a replacement prison could cost.

A recently completed prison in California's Kern County cost $311.9 million to house 5,000 maximum-security inmates. That's slightly bigger than Utah's Draper facility, which houses about 3,600 inmates.

The Central Utah Correctional Facility, in Gunnison, holds about 1,100 inmates, and about 1,300 inmates are held at county jails throughout the state.

The contract for the feasibility contract hasn't been signed yet, Nye said. He expects that to be done sometime in the next two weeks.

He said the date originally planned to announce the selection of a contract was June 13, but since only one proposal was received, DFCM can be a weekend ahead of schedule.

"We were not bound to accept the Wikstrom proposal," Dixon Pignanelli said. "If we were not satisfied, we had the option of soliciting additional proposals."

The first draft of the feasibility study is due Sept. 15, and public comment is welcome throughout the entire study.

Public hearings will be held in November to discuss draft findings, the release states. Comments may be submitted to prisonstudycomments@utah.gov.

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E-mail: jdougherty@desnews.com