AUGUSTA, Maine — The state is getting closer to a final plan to re-open a prison facility in Washington Count, but the exact location still hasn’t been decided.
The LePage administration shut down the former Downeast Correctional Facility last year. The Mills administration plans to reopen it in a different form to ease pressure on other minimum security prison facilities and help the economy of Washington County.
Corrections Commissioner Randy Liberty told NEWS CENTER Maine on Friday the department has decided it will be a pre-release facility with 50 inmates and 15 staff. But they haven’t decided whether to renovate the old Downeast Correctional Facility in Machiasport or find another location.
Liberty says the old facility was stripped of useful items, ranging from boilers to bunks to kitchen equipment after it closed last June. He says architects have estimated renovations to the old buildings would cost between $12 million and $17 million. Liberty says they have not yet identified other potential locations but are working on that now.
The Commissioner says they hope to decide on a location in the next few weeks, and are still planning to have inmates living there by September. The proposed new state budget includes $1.9 million per year for operating costs. Funds to build a new facility were part of a state bond passed by the Legislature in 2016.