The Big House

By K. Robert Wendel

It's down to punch lists at the new $115 million federal penitentiary on south Wilmot Road in Tucson. General contractor Dick Pacific Construction Cos. Phoenix office and architectural firms Arrington Watkins Architects of Phoenix and Virginia-based HSMM are in the process of wrapping up the 26-month project.

advertisement

But it could be some time before prisoners take up residence in the in the 1,016- unit facility. Under the 2004-2005 budget, no funds have been allocated for furniture, fixtures, equipment or staff.

Work on the massive project started in October 2003 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 Wilmot Road. Contractors took the site below it's original grade, hiding the bulk of the prison, except for the guard towers that pop up over the chollas and palo verde trees surrounding the site. The project sits on top of the excavated grade on a slab-on-grade foundation

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

The majority of the buildings are in the secure area of the prison, but administration offices, a warehouse and other support buildings are constructed outside of those high- security areas. Total building square footage is 635,000.

Like other Federal Bureau of Prison projects, the Tucson penitentiary features a typical design that can be configured for the specific site. There are a total of 15 buildings.

The project features six, two-story general housing units. Each unit is divided into two wings with 64 cells on each level. There also is a two-story, 120- cell "special housing" building for inmates segregated from the general population.

There is a Federal Prison Camp for low-risk 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."

Although the design is fairly standard, architects were able to provide a column-free day room on this site. Without the columns obstructing views, guards can keep better tabs on inmates.

"We came up with some pretty innovative long-span, precast structures to span across the day room," said architect Lynn Arrington of Arrington Watkins Architects. "They span 88 -ft. across the day room so there's a nice open space with no hidden corners.

The general -housing units' feature precast cells, which were constructed on site. The cells sit on a slab-on-grade foundation and are enclosed with concrete tilt-up walls. Designers chose to use a 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 of Phoenix used 21,000 cu. yds. for the slab and other cast-in place features, while Seretta Constuction of Florida needed another 7,900 cu. yds of concrete for the 11-in.- thick tilt-up walls.

Rotondo Weirich Precasting of Tucson used more than 6,000 cu. yds. for the precast cells. Other contractors include electrical contractor Berg Electric of Escondido, Calif.; TriCity Mechanical of Chandler; Ariz., Ruiz Masonry of Tucson; Coreslab Structures of Phoenix; and CLG Steel Co. of Tucson.

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."

Dick Pacific teamed with Arrington Watkins and HSMM to construct the prison under a design-build contract. "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., an engineering firm. "When you have a problem, all of a sudden, there are 20 people moving things around."