EFRATA – More than 60% of voters approved a three-tenths 1% sales tax increase in 2019 to help fund a new Grant County Jail. Today, this prison is built with walls that are clearly visible to drivers passing in front of the construction site. Southwest side of State Route 282 near Ephrata Walmart.

“It was not designed for our current needs; It was built for our needs over the next 40 years,” Grant County Sheriff Joey Kriete said during a tour of the facility Wednesday morning. “Grant County is projected to be one of the fastest-growing counties in the Pacific Northwest. “We want to make sure we have a facility that will (continue) to accommodate that growth.”

The prison’s maximum price tag will be about $155.5 million and is being built by Lydig Construction, a Spokane Valley-based company with offices in Kennewick and Bellevue. Kriete said the company has been a good partner on the project, with weekly meetings allowing county leaders to discuss progress and make changes as the project progresses, and they have recognized potential cost-effective improvements, such as improvements to the initial design of the facility. ovens for the facility’s kitchen.

“We are here to provide that feedback in meetings every Wednesday. Today, we talked about some kitchen equipment that we can replace. OK, this is huge. So communication is huge,” Kriete said.

Calling the new facility just a prison might be a bit of a misnomer. More precisely, it is a justice center with a prison inside. The large, white steel building, visible from the highway, is one of two accommodation facilities that will house prisoners. Kriete said the buildings are divided into several bays, which allows corrections officers to separate inmates based on their condition. Each building will have two layers of cells, with a main control area in the center of the building. Inmates will have both line-of-sight and video surveillance, allowing officers to monitor inmates to ensure the safety of both staff and inmates. How violent an offender may be, gang affiliation and other factors will determine which pod the inmate will be assigned to. The jail’s initial inmate capacity will be 512 beds, and the site and design will allow the county to add two more buildings if county growth requires it.

“Hopefully we won’t need the other 512 beds, right? Hopefully this will be large enough that we can maintain the current inmate population (capacity) with the current inmate population and the issues in Grant County. If you don’t need to expand, you know you’ve won,” Kriete said.

A new infirmary will also be added to the new area. Kriete said prison inmates must be provided with medical care in accordance with the law. Staff are available to help people deal with a wide range of issues, such as mental health, withdrawal from controlled substances, or injuries. If there is a need for more extensive care that the prison cannot provide (which is not very common), they may be transferred to larger prisons, but everything can mostly be handled in-house.

A new administrative office for the Grant County Sheriff’s Office is also part of the new facility. Kriete said his idea was to move GCSO administrative staff to the new office, which would be welcoming and accessible to the community. Residents will be able to visit the jail for a variety of services, including applying for a concealed weapons permit, requesting service of court documents, and being directed to community resources where law enforcement often provides a bridge.

“It will be really welcoming. It really is. “When you walk into the sheriff’s office in May 2026, the last thing you’ll think about is, ‘Oh my God, I’m in jail,'” he said.

Deputy Chief of Corrections Phillip Coats said he is excited to have a new facility for his staff to work in. During a prison officer’s career, working in a brand new prison is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This is not a common occurrence, and he thinks the security and pride the new facility will bring will be good for his department. It can also help with recruiting, which poses a national challenge for law enforcement in correctional or correctional facilities.

“What (the architects) built into this entire facility took the staffing concept into consideration. So, corrections officers averaged over 58,000 hours in prison during their careers, right? And to hear an architect ramble on about those numbers, to me that means they took the staff’s perspective into account in the overall build.”

Coats said the mindset will help MPs’ health and well-being, and he is grateful to MPs for that benefit.

From a staffing perspective, Kriete said the prison can help with recruitment, but it will also help with retention. Both correctional officers and patrol deputies, as well as specialized teams within GCSO, are required to maintain a certain number of training hours each year. The new justice center will have a training room to support this effort. GCSO has staff instructors and instructors who visit the district and host classes. Grant County’s central location in Washington is a magnet for such activities among partner organizations across the state.

“The state requires all of our deployed deputies to receive a certain amount of training each year to maintain their peace officer certification,” Kriete said. “And now they’ve done the same thing with corrections and made it a certified profession, as it should be, and they also require a certain number of hours of training.”

Kriete said GCSO is trying to provide officers with more hours than necessary for convenience, and having the training room at the justice center will aid in that effort.

Coats and Kriete said the transition to the new facility is a key focus for GCSO staff as the prison moves forward.

“We also do have a transition team,” Coats said. “The National Department of Corrections came in a few months ago and did a great four-day course for a lot of special corrections officers. We also have a transition team to make sure the transition from the old facility to this facility is as seamless as possible, making sure we have our new processes in order (and) knowing what to expect. “We operate a much larger facility.”

NIC also conducted a staffing analysis to ensure GCSO knew what the staffing demands would be for operating the new facility compared to the existing jail, Kriete said. The analysis is expected to be completed by the end of the year and will allow the department to adjust plans. The new facility may need more correctional assistants but the same number of administrative staff. Intake deputies or other staff may be needed as the influx of inmates through new inmate intake will change the process. The assessment will help identify these needs.

Kriete said the Ephrata community has already benefited from the project. The road in front of the site has been improved and designed so that it can be extended into the southwestern part of the city, where growth in Ephrata is coming from.

In an update from Tom Gaines, the county noted that sewer, water and wastewater pipes have been installed to cross Dodson Road and connect to the Ephrata Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The city of Ephrata used the opportunity associated with this installation to lay pipes under the roads that would eventually bring treated water to the Port of Ephrata for industrial use. Port Executive Director David Lanman told the Columbia Basin Herald that reclaimed water will help attract businesses to the port and downstream business because many businesses need that water for industrial purposes.

Ultimately, Kriete and Coats said the goal is to make the jail a facility that meets Grant County’s needs for decades.

“Grant County is the fastest growing county in the state and is expected to continue the same growth pattern for the next six to eight years,” Coats said. “With this expected growth comes the crime side of things, right? “So we will have the capacity to keep up with this increase in the criminal element in this prison.”

Lydig Construction personnel work to place cinder blocks outside the new Grant County Sheriff’s Office administration building in Ephrata. Although temperatures were a bit chilly, workers continued to move forward with the vertical construction of the new center.

Crews work in the central office, which most non-inmates will visit when they arrive at the new Grant County Sheriff’s Office, which is expected to open in 2026.

Deputy Chief of Corrections Phillip Coats discusses the benefits the new prison facility will provide for his staff and inmates, ensuring they are both safe and have a facility that meets the needs of the community.

Workers are using a variety of heavy equipment to advance construction of the new Grant County justice center. The structure is made of steel, cement, plastic and other materials.

The white building on the left in this photo is one of two buildings that will be built to house prisoners in multiple bays. The pods will have technology that allows for close monitoring of inmates and walls that separate inmates based on their risk of interacting with each other and officers.

Lydig Construction workers install a cross member between steel supports for the second of two inmate housing buildings at the new justice center. The frame will consist of steel with larger beams like the one lifted by the crane in the background supporting the building.

Grant County Sheriff Joey Kriete explains some aspects of the drawing used in the construction of the new Grant County Jail. He said a lot of thought went into ensuring the safety of officers and inmates at the facility, and that was reflected in the design.

Crews move materials toward one of the slabs that will form the foundation of one of two inmate housing blocks at the new Grant County Jail.