Crawford County: Supervisors take tour of new jail building

By Steve Van Kooten

Crawford County supervisors saw what their $35 million is buying them after their board meeting on Aug. 19.

The supervisors, along with some county personnel, went on an extensive tour of the new jail addition, which included a look at the control center, holding areas, sally port and even the skywalk that connects the new building to the existing sheriff’s office and courthouse.

According to Kraemer Brothers, the project’s construction manager, work is on schedule and on budget.

“Construction over the summer has gone extremely well,” said Greg Callin, Kraemer Brothers’ vice president of client services. “It’s really progressed nicely over the past few months... the structure’s nearly complete.”

During the Finance Committee meeting on Aug. 6, Finance Chair Gary Koch mentioned that he heard the addition was over 90 percent complete.

By the end of September, the addition’s metal wall panels will be installed. Interior painting and finishing work on some internal structures, such as showers, will also be finished. The building will be fully enclosed, and the exterior facade will be completed by November.

The addition is supposed to be completed in early April.

“I think the contractor and subcontractors have done a good job. There’s a lot of communication that has to take place. That’s why it works — it’s a joint thing,” said Koch.

As of July, the county’s expenditures on the project totaled approximately $17 million, which is $150,000 more than projected. Callin said this is due to normal fluctuations in cash flow that happen during a large-scale project.

“You’re saying we’re pretty much on target,” said Supervisor Craig Anderson. “At this point, you’re $150,000 over projected. I realize that’s perhaps a negligible amount given the scope of the project. I imagine it will go back and forth over the next few months.”

“Sometimes that’s just a function of how materials are ordered and how the subcontractors are billing us relative to their work. When we put together that projection, it’s a guess on our part based on other projects we’ve done. It’s not an exact science,” answered Callin. “Being within $150,000 is really pretty good.”

Information provided by Kraemer Brothers notes the draw schedule was created almost a year ago (Sept. 2024).

“One thing I can say about the project overall is now that we’ve got the building up and closed, those big dollar-amount risk items are really behind us,” said Callin.

There is still more than $1 million in contingency built into the budget. So far, the County has approved seven uses of contingency funds amounting to approximately $80,000.

Callin said there will be some costs in the future requiring contingency funds, such as replacing the windows in the old jail building.

“There are a couple of items that will come down the pike on that. One is the windows —that will be a significant item. I would guess around $100,000,” he said.

According to Erik Daniels, with Klein McCarthy Architects, plans originally called for all of the single-hung windows in the building to be replaced, excluding a few detention windows.

According to Callin, the county is in “good shape” because they’re on schedule for their financial payments and still have most of their contingency funds available. 

During the Aug. 6 meeting, Koch said that the county plans to move their servers and IT equipment into the new jail facility. This decision follows extensive damage incurred during a malfunction in the administration building’s fire-suppression system this past June.

“It’s a dry, fire-suppression environment over there, and, actually, the fiber that’s going into that facility is much better than what it is here, so for lots of reasons, all of our servers will be over in that facility,” he said.

Callin added that Nathan White, regional specialist with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, approved of moving the servers to the new building.

Other progress on the site includes:

• There have not been any recorded incidents in the past 30 days. The construction team has held five safety meetings and conducted five safety inspections in the same timeframe.

• The project has thus far avoided any change orders that affect the budget.

• The facility was in the process of hooking into utilities from Beaumont Road at the time of the meeting.

• Callin reported that representatives from the Department of Corrections have walked through the structure on multiple occasions, and the feedback from the DOC is positive.

• The project still has not needed a change order that affects the construction budget.

• The Prairie du Chien Police Department announced they will finish moving to the City Hall building between late August and early September.