Coyote Ridge Ready and Waiting

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By Holly Zuluaga

Summary

Instead of opening its doors, you might say the expansion at Coyote Ridge is finally ready to close its cells.

Story Published: Jan 22, 2009 at 7:01 PM PST

CONNELL-- Instead of opening its doors, you might say the expansion at Coyote Ridge is finally ready to close its cells.

Money trouble caused a few months delay to the project.

"I think it is just really a symptom of the national economy, the Department of Corrections is not immune," Maria Peterson with the Department said.

The flashy new facility is trying to be green.

That means no green grass that would require maintenance, and solar panels are on some of the buildings.

"This is a new and modern prison, laid out in a way that gets the best use of energy," Jeffrey Uttecht said.

The new prison can house more than 2,000 inmates, now at medium security.

The difference between the medium security and the minimum security facilities is that the medium security facilities have the rest rooms in the cell, so the inmates can't go and come as they please.

In fact minimum security inmates have keys to get in and out of their cells to access a common area and use the bathroom, they just have to follow some rules.

The plan is to move some inmates from the old facility into the new facility next month, and the rest of the population will come from all over the state, in hopes that washington inmates won't need to be sent out of state.

"Of course any time you have a family member incarcerated you want them as close as you possibly can, we really encourage family involvement," Maria Peterson said.

The prison tells me they've done a lot of hiring, but hope to eventually double their staff.

"Just the economic boom of having a staff of a large number into the city is a big deal," Jeffrey Uttecht said.

The DOC tells us it's taken a lot of work, but they're ready to put the new prison to work.