Lake County Safety Center tops off: 2,000 jobs covered by a PLA
Lake County Safety Center
Key stakeholders pose with the final structural beam prior to the topping off ceremony for the new Lake County Safety Center, which will be home to the new county jail and Sheriff's Department offices.
Roughly a year after the project broke ground, members of Iron Workers Local 17 topped off the new Lake County Safety Center.
The project to build a new home for the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and a new county jail held a topping out ceremony on Nov. 13 to mark the completion of the structural framework, bringing the project one step closer to serving the community.
“We are incredibly excited about the future of justice and public safety in Lake County, focusing on providing men and women with proper healthcare, mental health treatment and addiction services,” Sheriff Frank Leonbruno said. “These services in the new state-of-the-art Sheriff’s Office facility will help individuals return to our community stronger and better than when they arrived.”
The new correctional facility, located directly across from the existing county jail, will increase capacity from 355 to 504 beds on three and a half floors, encompassing 250,000 square feet on roughly 5 acres of land. It features modern advancements in inmate supervision, treatment programs, medical care and intensive post-release supervision to support community reintegration.
According to the Lake County government website, the need for a new safety center stems from a combination of overcrowding at the current jail, plus millions of dollars needed to renovate the jail, which opened in 1990.
Built to house about 350 inmates, the current jail regularly houses over 400 inmates. Additional operating challenges include inadequate medical facilities, undersized kitchen and laundry facilities and inadequate space for substance abuse and training programs.
From a Sherriff’s Department standpoint, the building does not have enough office space, conference rooms, training space, evidence storage and areas for SWAT.
Dave Wondolowski, Cleveland Building and Construction Trades Council Business Manager/Executive Secretary, noted the entire project will be performed under a Project Labor Agreement.
“This project will create about 200 jobs for our members,” he said. “It’s significant to our members who live in Lake County to have a project of this magnitude so close to home.”
The Lake County Safety Center is another example of how educating politicians on both sides of the aisle about the issues important to the building trades can lead to work opportunities for building trades members,” Wondolowski said.
All three county commissioners are Republicans, and they all voted in favor of the PLA, Wondoloski said.
“We need to continue to work with politicians from all parties and educate them on the benefits of using building trades members to construct their projects,” he added.
The new Safety Center is scheduled to open in the summer of 2027.