Where to Build New Jail? (Solution) (house, neighborhoods, living)

[Always Needmore]

Thus far, all of the proposed locations for the new Allen County Jail have met with stiff resistance from locals living and working in the neighborhoods proposed.

I believe I have a practical solution.

When the current Edwin J. Rousseau center was originally constructed as a combined City-County Offices Building, provisions were built into the foundation to permit for future expansion. Specifically, with the intention to accommodate a second tower. One can look at overhead aerials of the building, and see that the building support columns were set through the roof of the current configuration, and capped off. Better than "shovel ready" you might say.

Over the years as the City administrative offices decided to expand, they elected instead to relocate to another building entirely, and the City-County Building was turned over to the city police department as it's new headquarters, now known as the "Rousseau Center"

What better place to inventory the incarcerated than right under the watchful eye of our dedicated public servants?

I propose that expanding the Rousseau Center specifically to house the new jail facility would offer numerous benefits: avoiding the land acquisition cost entirely, recovering the stranded costs taxpayers were forced to invest in when the building was originally designed with potential for expansion, placing the jail in a location where residential neighborhoods will not be impacted, as well as benefiting from the synergies of having a highly trained security force already on site, not to mention having the location conveniently across the street from the Courthouse would certainly be a time and cost saver for court appearances. This last item alone would surely afford logistic savings in the tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, per year. I believe there is already a tunnel under Main Street connecting directly to the courthouse, so there would be a security benefit, as well. Frankly, I don't see any down side.

Shown below is the building in it's current configuration, with the proposed expansion shaded in red.