ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, March 25, 1997                TAG: 9703250062
SECTION: CURRENT                  PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
DATELINE: DUBLIN
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER THE ROANOKE TIMES 

CITIZENS ASSURED NEW JAIL WON'T DETRACT FROM SURROUNDINGS

Authority chairman says professional designers will be hired.

The chairman of the New River Valley Regional Jail Authority has assured a citizens advisory group that the jail, when built, will not detract from the community or any other properties that may develop around it in the Dublin Industrial Park.

"As a matter of fact, it might enable us to set a standard for what else goes in there," said Assistant Radford City Manager Bob Lloyd. "We don't want to put anything in there that's going to be a distraction."

Lloyd told the jail advisory committee that it may be 1998 when a jail superintendent is hired, because the state would not pay the salary until about six months before construction starts. He said the authority will hire professional designers for the jail.

The jail authority's next meeting will be April 11, when it will consider three construction management proposals for building the 360-bed jail. It will be located on a 27.79-acre site in the Dublin Industrial Park.

The deadline for localities to join the authority "has come and gone," Lloyd said. "It's finalized. What you see is what you get right now."

Member localities are the Radford and counties of Pulaski, Giles, Grayson, Bland, Wythe, Carroll and Floyd. Tazewell County had expressed an interest in becoming part of the regional jail or, if it was too late, working out a separate contract under which it would send its prisoners to the jail. Lloyd said the authority declined the separate contract, at least until it sees how full the jail will be with prisoners from its existing partners.

John Wenrich, one of the advisory committee members, suggested the possibility of getting landscape students from Virginia Tech to draw up landscaping plans for the jail site as a student project. Lloyd said the idea may have merit but should be presented to the authority.

Lloyd met with the group last week at the Ruritan National headquarters building, not far from the future jail site.

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