Building A Pen
Penitentiary Project Creating Massive Prison
By K. Robert Wendel

If you fight the law and the law wins, your next stop could be at one Arizona's largest construction projects, once it is completed.

Construction on a sprawling federal penitentiary near Tucson is underway, with plans to finish the massive, 1,100-bed complex by 2005.

General contractor Dick Pacific Construction teamed with two architectural firms, Phoenix-based Arrington Watkins and Virginia-based HSMM to build the $112 million project utilizing the design-build project delivery method.

"This is the largest design-build project we have worked on, and it's incredibly interesting to see how fast and efficient design-build can be," said Mark Taylor, a civil engineer with Tucson's Westland Resources Inc.

"When you have a problem, all of a sudden, there are 20 people moving things around."

Work on the massive project started in October with the grading and excavation of 460,000 cu. yds. of cut and another 370,000 cu. yds. of fill at the 200-acre site on south Wilmot Road.

"We had a lot of dirt to move and a lot of excavation," said Dan Arana, project manager for Dick Pacific Corp. "We also had to rework some of the soils, because they needed treatment and a recompaction of soils."

Plans call for the majority of buildings to be in the secure area of the prison, but administration offices, a warehouse and other support buildings will be constructed outside of those high security areas.

Like other Federal Bureau of Prison projects, the Tucson penitentiary features a standard design that can be configured for the specific site. Six, two-story general housing units contain 64 cells on each level, and one, two-story, 120 cell "Special Housing" building for inmates segregated from the general population or for administrative discipline. There is also a Federal Prison Camp for low-inmates or those near their release dates.

"This is pretty much a standard model for us," said Scott Higgins, chief of design and construction for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. "Most institutions have some variations where site restrictions demand some changes in the design."

Higgins said the bureau had moved to the design-build method of project delivery several years ago and added, "the bureau has a long history of design-build and we are pretty pleased with it."

The general-housing units' feature precast cells which are currently being constructed on site. The cells sit on a slab on grade foundation and are enclosed with concrete tilt-up walls. Designers chose to use s tunnel form method to precast cells, not only for speed but also for security.

"Precasting the concrete cells on site saves time and also eliminates a troublesome construction joint," said Bill Porter, a senior vice president at Virginia Beach, Va.-based HSMM Inc., an architectural and engineering firm. "When they are cast conventionally, the joints can be up to 2 in. big. Filling that gap is difficult and inmates start messing around in there and they have a place to hide things."

Lithko Concrete used 21,000 cu. yds. for the slab and other cast-in place features, while Serrata Concrete needed another 7,900 cu. yds of concrete for the 11-in. thick tilt-up walls. Rotondo Precasting is using more than 6,000 cu. yds. for the precast cells.

"The contractor casting and tunnel forming the cells ended up being the best price and the best schedule," said Lynn Arrington of Arrington Watkins Architects. "We also ended up with some innovative, long-span precast structural concrete with almost 88-ft. across the day rooms. Since there are no columns, there's a nice open space with no hidden corners."

In addition to the secure facilities constructed of concrete and masonry, the project also features a host of pre-engineered metal buildings for support.

"The largest building we have down there is a 40,000-sq.-ft. warehouse, but we also have a 3,700-ft. covered walkway that wraps around the perimeter of the cells," said Dan Barnett, marketing director for Arizona Building Systems in Phoenix. "There just a lot of coordination going on out there with all the other trades that are on site."