Work to begin this year on Graterford replacement

Pennsylvania will break ground late this year on a $400 million prison to replace Graterford Prison in Montgomery County, officials announced late Friday.

The facility will house 4,000 medium- and maximum-security inmates on state land near the existing prison in Skippack Township, said Ed Myslewicz, spokesman for the state's General Services Department.

Graterford Prison - built in 1929 and expanded by 372 cells in 1989 - is overcrowded and will be "mothballed," he said.

Bids will go out this spring; contracts for design and construction will be signed this summer.

Construction should begin as soon after that as possible, Myslewicz said. Design work and building will take place concurrently.

"We want to get dirt flying by late in 2009," he said.

The money, from the state's capital fund, has already been allocated by the General Assembly, Myslewicz said.

Completion is expected within three years.

The project is part of an $862 million initiative to add 9,000 beds to the state's prison system. Prisons will be built in Centre and Fayette Counties and units added to facilities in Crawford, Forest, Indiana and Northumberland Counties.

The news came in a statement faxed to newsrooms. It said Graterford Prison was no longer viable because of the "high costs and operational challenges it presents."

"The facility is difficult to manage, is very staff intensive, and would require more than $60 million in capital to maintain operations during the next decade," the statement said.

The 1,200 workers staffing the old facility will be employed at the new one, the statement said. A spokesman for the state Department of Corrections could not be reached Friday night to determine what will happen to inmates while the facility is being built.

Graterford Prison is 31 miles west of Philadelphia. The facility, which according to Skippack houses 3,500 inmates, is Pennsylvania's largest maximum-security prison.

In 1989, the completion of an $80 million construction program added a new administration building, a 28-bed infirmary, and more cells.