KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The schedule for building a permanent jail in Kansas City is coming together, but voters who approved a sales tax extension for the project won’t see any progress at the site for a while.
City leaders plan on building their jail just west of the new Jackson County Jail off of 40 Highway near the Blue River. Assistant City Manager Jeff Martin told FOX4 on Friday that he believes the project’s on time.
New $300M Jackson Co. jail on track to finish construction in December
City Spokeswoman Sherae Honeycutt told us the Request for Proposal (RFP) was supposed to end in July. Martin says the city council could vote on a designer for the jail next month.
“I anticipate we’ll have probably about an 18-month design process from after we get them under contract,” Martin said. “So, I would say somewhere a year and a half or so from now, there’s a possibility that construction would start.”
Jackson County is scheduled to open its new jail this spring. That project started back in 2020. The design phase took about a year, according to the jail’s website. Honeycutt says their jail will hold people charged with municipal crimes, not people involved in shootings or murders.
“A municipal crime is not assault, and so these are people who have lower-level crimes that if treated, if we work with them at this point in their life, they may not find themselves in situations facing crimes with the county,” she said.
In the interim, the city’s planning a modular jail on the east side of the city too. That one’s supposed to go up near the city’s tow lot off of Front Street. It’s supposed to be ready in the spring of next year.
“We understand that we need to get things done for them,” Honeycutt continued. “We need a safe community. We need to support people, and so, that’s why we’re looking at more than one option to find a solution that works for everybody and gets this problem out from where it is now.”
The city hasn’t had its own jail since 2015. The permanent jail may not be done until 2029.
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