A property that sold for $13 million in Bellevue will help the city cover its portion of the costs for planning a new municipal jail that would serve multiple jurisdictions in east and north King County.
The city, which has already budgeted around $417,000 for joint planning and environmental studies, will get around $971,000 from the land deal.
Bellevue is among a group of 23 municipalities hatching plans for a 640-bed regional jail that would serve their needs after King County stops housing misdemeanants, possibly as early as 2012.
The county says it will no longer have jail space to lend after its contract with the cities ends that year, although a short-term extension of the agreement is possible.
Among the six potential sites for a new regional jail is one in Bellevue on 116th Avenue Northeast, just south of Northeast Eighth Street. Other locations include three spots in Seattle, one in Shoreline, and another in the Kingsgate area near Kirkland.
Early estimates indicate that construction of a new facility could cost the cities over $144 million.
Bellevue has considered building its own jail, but the City Council has yet to authorize any studies that would move such a plan along.
King County previously owned the Bellevue property that sold for $13 million, having acquired it under the 1996 tax levy that funded the Regional Justice Center in Kent. The plan was to build a similar Eastside facility, but the necessary money never came together.
The county offered up the property as part of an agreement with the cities to phase out their jail contracts.
Seattle Childrens’s Hospital has agreed to buy the land, located on 116th Avenue Northeast north of Overlake Hospital, for a new 75,000-square-foot outpatient center.
Bellevue held the property in trust until the sale closed, and is now waiting for approval of the agreement from the various city councils before distributing the money.
Seattle will take the lion’s share of the funds, about $4.6 million, after budgeting around $7.2 million for the jail-planning efforts, known as the North East Cities (NEC) Municipal Jail Project.
A draft environmental-impact statement for the project is expected by December, with a final EIS due around mid-2010.
New components were added to the study following public meetings that took place between December and January to discuss jail planning. The new items will address air quality, and populations and housing, as well as impacts on property value and public safety.
