Commissioners approved almost $300,000 more for consultant assisting with process
The Sarasota County Commission has approved spending close to $300,000 more on a contract with an architectural firm that has been consulting with county staff on plans for a new jail and the relocation of the Criminal Justice Center in downtown Sarasota.
When Brad Gaubatz, the county Capital Projects Department manager who is overseeing what staff is calling the Correctional Campus Master Planning initiative, appeared before the commissioners on Jan. 28 to discuss the latest design options, he said that staff would be back soon with a request for extra funding for Harvard Jolly Architecture, which has expertise in construction of jails, though he did not use the company name at that time.
Before the Feb. 25 unanimous vote in favor of the additional $299,079, Commissioner Mark Smith did have a question for staff about whether another site in downtown Sarasota should be specified in the expanded scope of work for the firm, which has offices in Southwest Florida.
As Deputy County Administrator and Chief Financial Management Officer Steve Botelho explained, the Correctional Campus team has begun looking at the potential use of a City of Sarasota parking lot on Ringling Boulevard as an option for the relocated Criminal Justice Center.
That parking lot is north of the Sarasota Police Department headquarters, which stands on Adams Lane. It is the former site of the agency’s headquarters. That land also was the focus of a past ownership dispute between city and county leaders; the disagreement evolved over more than a decade, after a former county administrator threatened that Sarasota County Government would leave the city and create a new county seat elsewhere. (Many years later, planning began to move the County Administration Center to property on Fruitville Road that had been owned by Benderson Development Co., which had agreed to purchase the six-story county building standing at 1660 Ringling Blvd. for $25 million. The new Administration Center is anticipated to be completed late this year.)
During the Feb. 25 discussion, Commissioner Ron Cutsinger asked whether the board members should revise the proposed motion for the Harvard Jolly funding to include direction to the firm to add the parking lot into the Correctional Campus analysis.
County Administrator Jonathan Lewis replied, “I don’t know how the deal is specifically structured.”
At that point, Deputy County Administrator Botelho stepped to the podium to show the commissioners a graphic depicting the parking lot’s location. “We can ensure … that the consultant looks at this as an option, as well,” for the Criminal Justice Center, he added. He did not believe the board members needed to change the relevant motion, Botelho said.
Chair Joe Neunder summed that up as “We’re good to go.”
The enduring CORT capacity question
After the approval of the new funding, Commissioner Tom Knight — who served three terms as the immediate past sheriff of the county — brought up a concern that he said he had been thinking about since the board’s last discussion of the jail, on Jan. 28.
Since the goal is to provide sufficient jail capacity for the future, Knight said, perhaps the project team should consider just keeping the current facility for the diversion of jail inmates with behavioral and substance abuse issues at the 40-bed level, instead of the county’s constructing a 200-bed center, as discussed in the past, as part of the new jail. The larger complex would be called the Correctional Reintegration Center (CRC).
The 40-bed Community Offender Rehabilitative Treatment Program (CORT) was a three-year pilot initiative that the commissioners approved; its funding expired at the end of the 2024 fiscal year, which was Sept. 30, 2024.
The CORT Program was established in a rehabilitated building on the campus of First Step of Sarasota; only low-level offenders were assigned to it.
In July 2024, the commissioners agreed to use funds that the county will receive from a “global settlement” involving the manufacturing and distribution of opioids to pay for a permanent 40-bed version of CORT. During that commission meeting, the full-time program was called RESTORE, the Rehabilitation, Education, and Support Toward Offender Reintegration Jail Diversion Treatment Program.
As Gaubatz of Capital Projects pointed out in late January, preliminary planning had focused on placing the Correctional Reintegration Center on the ground level of the new jail.
Forty beds seems to be “working great now,” Knight pointed out to Gaubatz on Feb. 25. “Do we feel confident that we can keep 200 beds filled through that system?” he asked and then apologized, saying, “I know that’s kind of late” to focus on that type of change.
Knight noted that State Attorney Ed Brodsky of the 12th Judicial Circuit and Public Defender Larry Eger and their staffs are responsible for collaborating on the identification of individuals who would be assigned to the CORT Program instead of to the jail, with most of them chosen by Eger’s staff.
For months before he had to leave the board in November 2024 because of term limits, Commissioner Mike Moran expressed frustration over insufficient use of the CORT facility. Finally, after discussions by members of the county’s Criminal Justice Commission — which includes Brodsky, Eger, the chief judge of the 12thJudicial Circuit and a representative of the Sheriff’s Office, among others — Moran reported to his colleagues that Eger and Brodsky appeared to be cooperating better in their referrals of persons to the CORT program.
Twelfth Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Diana Moreland — who chairs the county’s Criminal Justice Commission — told the commissioners in June 2024 that, during one of that advisory board’s meetings that year, “We got sort of a firecracker awakening” about the CORT process.
On Feb. 25, Gaubatz responded to Commissioner Knight that he and the other project team members were just at the start of their detailed analysis of how the new Criminal Justice Campus in downtown Sarasota should be created. However, he continued, the group already is thinking that it might be more appropriate to plan on extra inmates in the North and East Jail buildings, instead of a 200-bed Correctional Reintegration Center.
The West Wing of the Jail, which is the oldest structure in the detention center complex, will be demolished, Gaubatz has pointed out.
“What we’re really trying to do right now,” Gaubatz said, “is identify the major cost drivers,” as part of the effort to provide the necessary justification for construction of the new Criminal Justice Campus. He was referring to planning for the referendum the commission has agreed to conduct for the new jail during the November 2026 General Election.
Gaubatz assured Knight that the team would take a careful look at the CRC plans.
“Thank you,” Knight responded.