Contracts for Planning Canyon Jail Awarded

The Orange County Board of Supervisors awarded millions of dollars worth of contracts Tuesday for engineering and architectural work on the huge, $600-million jail to be built in the canyons of northeastern Orange County.

The contract expected to be worth the most, for architectural site planning and support services, went to Newport Beach-based Henningson, Durham & Richardson, allied with the Blurock Partnership.

Coleman/Caskey Architects Inc. and the Hope Consulting Group of Irvine were chosen for the architectural work on the housing units for the first phase of the jail construction, which will result in buildings to hold 2,500 inmates.

The Tustin firm of J.P. Kapp & Associates Inc., in a joint venture with IWA Engineers, was chosen for civil engineering for the whole project, which, upon completion, will produce a jail holding about 6,000 inmates.

$6 Million Budgeted

The exact amount of the contracts remains to be negotiated, but aides to supervisors said the architectural contract for the site master planning was likely to be worth $2.5 million, the housing unit architectural contract $1.5 million and the civil engineering contract a lesser amount.

The county has budgeted $6 million for the fiscal year ending next June 30 for architectural, engineering, construction management and other work on the jail, which will be built in Coal and Gypsum canyons, near the border with Riverside County.

Two weeks ago, the supervisors chose Fluor Daniel, a unit of Fluor Corp., to coordinate the work of the architects, civil engineers and county workers on the jail.