Podcast: Big Jail on a Small County Budget – The Tipton County Story

Tipton County faced a significant challenge: an old and overcrowded jail that no longer met the community’s needs. Determined to find a solution, the county embarked on a mission to build a new facility to address these issues and serve the community better.

 

Listen Here:

Join us as we hear from Tipton County’s Sheriff, Tony Frawley, award-winning Architect, Joe Mrak, and the design-builder. They share how Tipton County successfully built a large, efficient jail on a small county budget, proving that significant improvements are possible with the right plan and determination.

 

Follow Along with the Transcript Below:

Performance Services:

In late August of 2018, Tipton County, a rural community located in North central Indiana, broke ground on one of the most significant county projects since 1895. Like many communities around the nation, the county needed to replace an aging and overcrowded jail that no longer met their needs. A much needed new facility would be built replacing Tipton County’s 120-year-old jail.

And while the old building held a lot of history, its design was severely outdated with critical capacity and classification issues that no longer worked for the county or the safety of the sheriff staff. While planning their new and modern corrections facility, Tipton County had three clear objectives.

They needed to triple the capacity of the existing building, incorporate the latest in law enforcement facility design, and the building had to be completed within the agreed upon budget and schedule. After a previously unsuccessful design-bid-build project in 2016 that did not meet site selection and was significantly over budget after bidding, the county lacked confidence in getting a new law enforcement facility completed that would meet their needs and budget.

Because of this, the county commissioners considered a different project design and delivery method, and ultimately selected progressive design-build.

This new and innovative approach to design and construction allowed the owner, the design-builder, and the contractors to be highly collaborative throughout project development, to quickly solve issues and to make sure the owner’s needs were met within the available budget.

The result is a new law enforcement center that has the design features of a much larger jail. Essentially, it has the look and feel of a big county corrections facility on a smaller county budget, and the Tipton project is more than a jail. The building serves as a gateway to the Tipton community. This new facility represents the identity of the community and its values.

So why did Tipton County decide on the progressive design-build procurement method? What makes progressive design-build different from a traditional design-bid-build process? And how does it impact a complex project while hitting high marks with the commissioners, the sheriff? The jail commander and the community stakeholders.

We will explore those questions and more in today’s conversation.

I’m Jim Christie, business development manager for Performance Services, a design and construction company specializing in high performance building for education and municipal government. The company is a leading qualified provider for design-build and guaranteed energy savings projects.

In 2018, we were chosen to lead the design and construction of the Tipton County Sheriff’s Office and Correction Center, a project that we’re extremely proud to have been a part of the highly collaborative process and state-of-the-art building highlight the value of strong partnerships between designer, owner, and builder.

Today, I’ll be chatting with our project partners and now friends, award-winning architect Joe Mrak and the Tipton County Sheriff Tony Frawley. Together, we’ll explore the progressive design-build process and share our experience building the new correction center, which opened its door its in February, 2020

In the studio today, I have Joe Mrak, a nationally recognized architect and leader in corrections, justice and public safety design innovations. Joe has served as Lead Architect for more than 250 award-winning and innovative justice and public safety design projects, and has established a strong reputation as a leading authority in the Midwest and Southeast.

I’m also joined by Sheriff Tony Frawley of Tipton County. Frawley is a graduate of Indiana University’s renowned criminal justice program. With more than three decades in law enforcement. He spent 26 and a half years with the Indiana State Police, serving most recently as a criminal investigator. After being elected, Frawley became sheriff of Tipton County in January of 2015 and continues to serve the residents of Tipton County today.

So Sheriff and Joe, thanks for being a part of this discussion. Joe, before we jump into the conversation, with all your experience, can you give us a quick overview of what progressive design-build is and how it differs from other construction processes?

 

Joe Mrak:

Certainly Jim, and again, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

First of all, in order to describe the progressive design-build process, you have to differentiate it from the traditional design-build process. Traditionally, the design-builders were selected on price, most often based on a design, a price of a design that was done without a lot of owner input.

So, with the progressive design-build process, the design-builders selected based on qualifications and the design of the project is developed and the budget for the project is refined through a very collaborative process. It’s more along the lines of traditional design processes, but bringing the construction, the building element into it.

And so by its nature, progressive design-build is much more collaborative, which is very important in today’s construction environment with labor shortages and material shortages and schedules being critical. The more collaborative the process is between the owner and the design-builder and the architect and the subcontractors, including the design assist partners all around the table at the same time.

You develop the design together and you refine the budget together. So that’s very different than any of the other traditional construction delivery methods.

 

Performance Services:

So Joe, you’ve been a part of how many construction delivery methods all at once?

 

Joe Mrak:

Actually that’s, it’s funny you should mention that. Over the past year or so, I’ve been involved in the construction of four different jail projects utilizing four different delivery methods. One being the traditional general construction, one being the construction manager as an agent, one being the construction manager at risk, and the progressive design-build process all at the same time.

So I have a unique perspective on that right now.

 

Performance Services:

Yeah, and I think I’ve heard you say as you go through these four different processes, as you mentioned earlier, progressive design-build, especially with the Tipton process, allowed us to really develop friendships and collaborate to really drive the process to get the owner what they needed.

 

Joe Mrak:

Yeah. It’s been actually a lot more fun than most projects. And because it’s, there’s less stress involved. The time that’s spent on the project is in collaboration, not in confrontation. That’s the big difference between progressive design-build and traditional methods.

 

Performance Services:

So thanks Joe for that.

It’s helpful to understand the basics of progressive design-build in order to recognize the benefits. And Joe, speaking of benefits, in a recent article you wrote, which by the way folks, is on the performance services website. You mentioned that there were five key benefits for using a progressive design-build process.

I’d love to talk about each of those with you and Sheriff Frawley and find out how they relate to the just completed Tipton County Corrections project. The first benefit you highlighted was one contract, which means the owner has the ability to hold one entity accountable during the design and construction of the new facility, of which the biggest benefit to the owner is the risk is shifted from the owner to the design-builder.

Sheriff Frawley is the project owner. I’d be curious to hear about what you think from your perspective one contract means to you and what it meant to you during the process of this construction project.

 

Tony Frawley:

What it means to myself personally or the county, is we deal with one entity or one company and that our issues now become that company’s issues.

And one of the things that I liked about that was that I can concentrate on different areas and knowing that someone at the end of the day is responsible for that, and we just deal with the project and let the company do what they’re paid to do.

 

Performance Services:

And we took away the finger-pointing and things that happened during a traditional construction process.

 

Tony Frawley:

There was no finger-pointing.

 

Performance Services:

Joe, as we talk about one contract, one of the things that we hear constantly is the fox watching the hen house. I’d like to have you give a little bit more of your perspective on that as you’ve been through the four or five different project delivery methods. And what that means from a progressive design-build standpoint and how Tipton County handled that.

 

Joe Mrak:

I would’ve two comments on that. Number one is the progressive design-build process is very transparent. When we have weekly meetings and the owner and contractors, subcontractors are there, everything is on the table. So there, there’s not much to hide. But one of the things that was done on the Tipton County Jail is the design-builder actually hired a superintendent for the construction with the intent that the county would hire this individual as the facility maintenance director after the project is completed.

So what you have is somebody who’s eventually gonna be working for the county on the job site every day, seeing everything that was constructed before it was covered up, and they’re serving the county a long time, but they’re involved in the construction as a member of the design-build team.

 

Performance Services:

Excellent. And Sheriff, will you have anything to add to that?

 

Tony Frawley:

One of the most important decisions that was made was exactly what Joe just talked about and that it will serve the county for a long time to come.

 

Performance Services:

Thanks for that, guys. Another thing, budget is always a critical concern for any owner when starting a project like this.

Sheriff Foley, I know that was on the top of your mind as well as the Commissioners. I’d like to talk about progressive design-build and how that gives the project owner greater control of the budget and how you guys felt like that played out on this project.

Joe, I’ll start with you.

 

Joe Mrak:

Certainly. As, I mentioned before, everybody had a seat at the table.

So the benefit of the budget is when I, as a designer bring up an idea. The person who’s responsible for building the project and make controlling the budget is right there. And we make decisions in real time and budgetary impacts in real time. And I’ll never forget one meeting Jerry, from Performance Services, we were talking about the building structure and talking about square footages. And we need to watch our square footage ’cause the area of the building is the biggest controller of the budget and very early the decision was made, we’re gonna use a particular type of structural system because it gives us the most economical structure that would meet its needs and allow us to have more money to spend on those things that make the jail, like the security electronic systems and the modular cells and so forth.

And those are done in real time with everybody there. And as an architect, that’s very refreshing to me. So, I don’t have to go design something, come back a week or two later and show it to everybody. And then somebody tells me two weeks after the meeting we have to redesign that ’cause it’s over budget.

There was no lost effort in this design process ’cause we had a handle on the budget, all along.

 

Performance Services:

Yeah. Joe, I’ve often heard you talk about surprise day or bid day. I don’t know what, I’d like you to explain that a little further and how this is different from a controlled budget standpoint. Yeah.

 

Joe Mrak:

In your traditional design-bid-build process you go through a design process.

You go through a bid process, and the day you receive bids, I often refer to it as surprise day because you’re surprised at the cost of your project, and you might have a handful, you might have 3, 4, 5 contractors bidding the project. They all have a different idea of what the cost is. And all too often, especially in today’s environment, that cost is a lot higher than everybody planned on.

With the progressive design-build process we were given the budget in the very beginning and we designed to the budget all along. And so there is no surprise day. There is no surprise, no panic the day the bids come in and five people give you an opinion of cost that’s much higher than what your budget is.

There is no surprise, and as I’ve mentioned previously, it’s a lot less stressful and there’s no lost effort in redesign and lost time in redesign efforts.

 

Tony Frawley:

Listen to Joe talk. Joe was exactly right that it definitely gives the owner more control of the budget. We knew what the dollars were. And what this process allows you to do is if you know upfront what the dollars are, you know what you’re working with now, that allows you to give and take to get to that budget.

And we’ve had those conversations among all of us. If we wanna do this, we’ve gotta give this. If we want to do this, we’ve got to give this. I knew going in. What my idea was, how I wanted to see it. At the end of the day, it’s exactly what I thought it would be.

 

Performance Services:

To your point, that leads into the third benefit and that really is the flexibility and collaboration throughout design.

As Joe wrote about in his article, I think to your point, we made a lot of decisions together, Sheriff and some of them. You had to make some tough decisions. So I’d have you explain those tough decisions where you didn’t get everything you wanted because we were looking at the budget at the same time, and that’s where the collaboration in the design process and the teamwork came together.

So, I’ll have you share a little bit on that.

 

Tony Frawley:

You’ve heard me say when we sat through all these meetings. And what I liked about the meetings were we all came to an agreement or an understanding. I didn’t get everything that I wanted, but what I did get was, an effort that we all worked on together.

We had so much money, this is the building that we want, and while ultimately a lot of those decisions on what we gave up was on me, or it was on Matt, the Jail Commander. What I appreciated was that Performance Services’ willingness to say, okay, hey, we can do this. We’ll do something here that allows this to come together.

And Joe was a part of those conversations and we leaned on Joe heavily.

 

Performance Services:

Joe, as part of that I’d like to talk a little bit about the charrette process as far as the benefit of the flexibility and collaboration throughout design. Tell us about the charrette real quick and how that brings in the teamwork and the engagement of the owner, as well as the designer and the contractors.

 

Joe Mrak:

Certainly. A design charrette is typically a short, very intense programming and design effort. And again, I’ve mentioned everybody having a seat at the table a couple of times, but what we were able to do is review the architectural program, develop through low-technology means several design concepts for the site, and several design concepts for the layout of the building.

And in our case, we simply use colored building blocks that are cut to the size of the architectural program for the various components and because using a low tech approach like that, everybody feels comfortable with it. Everybody can touch it and feel it and move it, and they feel comfortable being involved.

As opposed to, a high-tech solution, you already have some whiz kids sitting behind a computer doing 3D animations and so forth. That’s not interactive. But when you can pick up a building block and say, I think the kitchen should be adjacent to the intake, versus, I think the kitchen should be moved over here next to the housing pod.

Those are major design decisions that are made in many of those decisions were made a very short period of time. And again, we developed several site designs, several building designs, all in a matter of a few hours.

 

Performance Services:

Isn’t this the part where Matt Decker, the Jail Commander, said, I feel like on the previous process I was along for the ride and being told what to do and in the progressive design-build process I was in control of the ride.

Is that part of the process where we were at?

 

Joe Mrak:

Absolutely. Having the owner actually participate in that is critical. I also remember Matt saying one time, “I feel like a kid in the candy store,” right? And because you got to participate, you got to touch it and feel it, as opposed to the previous design-bid-build processes that the county’s gone through before this was much more interactive and a lot more higher level of participation from the client.

 

Performance Services:

Great. Thank you. And I think everything we’ve heard so far has been exactly what we have known and what we felt as we went throughout the process. Timelines are often as critical as budgets for owners. Progressive design-builds are known for increasing the speed of decision making, so not only speed of construction, but the increasing speed of decision making.

Joe, how did this play out at Tipton and how is it different than other traditional builds?

 

Joe Mrak:

I think, Jim, that the issue is everybody is on the same team. You don’t have conflicting priorities because you have different contracts with a client. So having the design assist partners, like the modular cell manufacturer or the electrical contractor involved in all of the design meetings, we could make decisions regarding cost, regarding delivery times early and incorporate those into the design.

And what we’re also able to do is if those, if we’re designing around a certain product, then the shop drawings and the fabrication of those products could begin before the design is actually complete. Therefore, we’re taking, we’re layering the design process and the construction process together.

Kind of fast tracking both of those together to cut a lot of lost time out waiting for materials to show up. Yep.

 

Performance Services:

Makes sense. And Sheriff from your perspective, I know you talked about the trades specifically, your local, the local trades, your friends being at the table, how do you think that helped make the decisions quicker for you as an owner?

 

Tony Frawley:

I think the important thing outta that, Jim, is the fact that we’re all setting at the table. We’re not making those decisions for those contractors or for those people. They’re involved in the decision and it just made it more smooth process that they can either say, Hey, we can do this. We can’t do this, or, no, that’s gonna be an issue.

We need to go this way. It was all right in front of us. Yep.

 

Performance Services:

Absolutely. And I find it interesting as I have been a part of this process, you have one entity as we talk about one contract with the owner. So all the decisions ultimately are with the owner and the design-builder, and we work together to make those decisions so that in the end, we’re responsible for making it right for you guys.

 

Tony Frawley:

And I agree with that. And we’ve had those conversations, and we referenced this earlier, if there’s an oversight or a mistake, that relationship has allowed us to work through those oversights or those mistakes, and I think that just allowed for the process to be smoother and for a better facility at the end of the day.

 

Performance Services:

Right.

So far, we focus mostly on the process. I’d like to take a few minutes to talk about the outcome because I think we can all agree that the core benefit of progressive design-build is high quality outcomes. To be frank, if the owner, Sheriff, I hope you would agree with this, isn’t happy the, with the final building, then it doesn’t matter what the process looks like.

So I’m curious to hear from both of you. What specifically about the process do you think makes for a great building, Sheriff?

 

Tony Frawley:

I would like to just take a step back and you guys, you had talked about the charrette process and I just wanna make a comment about that when. I think that was one of the biggest selling points for Matt and I.

One, I hadn’t heard of it, and when we first started talking about it, I’m thinking, great, I’m spending millions of dollars we’re gonna place charades. But to actually put your hands on it and move those things. We were all part of that. You recall, Joe, we took a ladder and we took pictures and we moved it around. That was one of the biggest selling points for me personally. ‘Cause now I can actually see it. Don’t show me a drawing. Let me feel it. Let me touch it, let me move it around. And I think that just led to a better product because now we’re actually. We have our eyes on it and we’re looking directly at what this finished product potentially can look like.

 

Joe Mrak:

Excellent.

 

Tony Frawley:

That was important to me.

 

Joe Mrak:

Hey, one of the profound things I think that came out of that was in the very beginning there was a decision of whether our housing pod should be a single tier of cells or a double tier of cells. And we laid out a pod of both configurations and looked at the advantages and disadvantages of it, and that was a major decision in the whole design process.

 

Tony Frawley:

Joe, if you recall, I ask that we get a price for a single tier and a double tier ’cause one of the first things I said right up front, we’re not building a double tier. For, obvious reasons, right? We did build a double tier and it was because it was a million dollars more to go single.

But you’re exactly right. Through that process and putting our hands on it, it allowed me to see, hey, we can do this double tier. We just have to do it the right way.

And we did do it the right way.

 

Performance Services:

And it was the right decision for the right reasons, and in the end, the safety of the inmates as well as the staff is still there.

So it was a great decision as we talk about high quality outcomes. The other thing that I, there’s two other things I, I think about and I’d like you guys to add to this.

One of the things I was impressed with is the county brought in retired sheet metal folks, retired electricians, so elect, retired elect contractors to look at the building.

And I’d like to get you guys take on what you heard those contractors say as far as the high quality outcomes. Sheriff?

 

Tony Frawley:

There’s a gentleman who’s been a friend of mine for years that is retired and out of the electric business and still part of a couple boards statewide. I wasn’t there, but he came in to the building and brought a friend, and the story goes, he raved about they’re walking behind the cells.

He raved about the work and the neatness of the work and from the electronics and the different things has goes into the back of the cell. And he was highly impressed that the process came together in such a way that it, it was an efficient built building that basically, in my opinion, didn’t leave any stones unturned for the quality and I’ve taken multiple people behind the cells.

And they all talk about the same thing.

 

Joe Mrak:

And I think, that care and that quality comes out when number one, these are local people like Sheriff has already talked about, and these are contractors and subcontractors that have worked with Performance Services in the past. You are familiar with them, you know what kind of quality of work they can do.

So they will take pride in their work for the future, not just this particular job. That makes a difference, right?

 

Performance Services:

I think as you look at the progressive design-build process, it’s really the only process that allows you, the owner and us, the and as well as the owner to select the trade contractors, both the local trusted trade contractors.

But once we’ve also worked with, and this is the benefit versus going with low bid in the design-bid-build process where you don’t know who you’re gonna get and also the quality of work. The other thing I’d like to tie into this is at the ribbon cutting, I was so impressed. So proud of the team and the building that we put together.

Sheriff, when the constituents, your constituents, came in, you’re spending their money, what did you get from that as far as the quality of the building and at the ribbon cutting and what the constituents thought?

 

Tony Frawley:

When the people came through and it was what I thought it would be. There were a lot of people there.

When’s the last time we built a jail in Tipton County? 120 some years ago. I think people left knowing that we spent their money wisely. That we didn’t, I had been accused, and you’ve all heard me say this at some point in time, in the early in this process of building the Taj Mahal. Exactly. You’ve all got to know my personality.

And that didn’t set well. And we clearly didn’t do that. We were efficient, we built what we needed. And one of the first things I said in the process, build what we need, use what we build. And we’ve done that.

I think at the end of the day, the taxpayer can walk away. And look at the building and say, this was long needed years ago.

And it allows us, as an agency and a county to move into the future and do the things that we need to do. And I’ve had several sheriffs do there, they all say the same thing. What a great building, how efficiently it was put together. And that just happened last week. Wow. When we were there.

 

Joe Mrak:

Wow.

Yep. Yeah. And Sheriff, sometimes things that get forgotten in this process is, you mentioned you’ll build what we need and use what you have. The county actually received more in this project than was originally requested. For instance, we are hired to provide a 70 bed jail. We have an 80 bed jail, so we provide a 10 additional beds.

Within that budget, the mental health unit that’s located in the jail was in the original program a future consideration. We’ve incorporated that into the design as well, within the budget. So quality, not just the pride of the contractors quality is you have a higher quality program as a result of the fact that we were able to incorporate a little bit more than what you requested.

And the request was based on the budget, what you thought the budget could stand, and through the process, we ended up actually with a little more than we set out to provide.

 

Performance Services:

Joe and Sheriff, thanks for your time today. As we close up our conversation, I just wanted to give both of you an opportunity to share your final thoughts about Tipton and the jail we put together, as well as the progressive design-build process.

I know for me, frankly, the one big key takeaway was really the close collaboration and friendships I formed with both you guys and the entire team that we had at the table. And I felt like we had each other’s backs and really what we wanted as a team, what was best for you, Sheriff and your team, to make sure they had a jail that was efficient, as you said, was safe for both the inmates and your staff, and also spent the money wisely for the county, and I felt like we accomplished that.

So I’m extremely proud of this team and extremely happy that we have the friendships we have formed today based on this process. Joe, your thoughts?

 

Joe Mrak:

A couple things. Number one is this was probably the most fun jail project I’ve worked on in my 38 years.

Because everybody was one team, and it was very enjoyable process. And the second thing is I made this comment at the building dedication. It is always amazing to me the smaller the community, the more people turn out for these building dedications in the tours. And I can’t remember how many hundreds of people came through the jail, but when you’re in a small community, a project like the jail is closer to everybody, so they take it more personally.

And I made the statement in my talk at the grand opening was that, from an industry standpoint, the Tipton County Jail is a small jail. But when you’re a taxpayer, there is no such thing as a small jail. And one of the things that I’m very proud of is, as far as the future’s concerned at Tipton County, you got all the bells and whistles, all the technology, all the future considerations of a big jail in a what’s known as a small jail. And that is gonna take you well into the future. Hopefully not under 120 years, but will serve the county well for a long time.

 

Tony Frawley:

Jim, one of the things I said earlier on in the process was one, this is gonna be the cornerstone of the western part of the city when you come into town, it can’t look like a jail. It has to look like a school or it has to look like an office building. That was a home run because if you look at the building, it looks nothing like a jail. You would never suspect it’s a jail. And so we got what we wanted. We did it in budget.

We didn’t overspend and we give something I believe that the community can look back on 20 or 30 years from now. Hey, they did what they said they were going to do. And the last thing is the design of the building allows that building to be expanded. And, we overbuilt, when I say overbuilt larger.

Laundry, facilities, kitchen, those types of things. For that purpose, I’ll never see it. But someday somebody might see it and we’ve allowed all that will ultimately save money for the county in at the end of the day.

 

Performance Services:

Absolutely.

 

Tony Frawley:

And that’s important.

 

Performance Services:

Thanks guys. I think it’s been a really great conversation and frankly, a wonderful way to close out a project that we all really enjoyed working on. For my team at Performance Services, it’s been tremendously rewarding from start to finish. And as I said earlier, it’s been tremendously rewarding because of the friendships I developed with you two. So thanks a lot for being a part of this.

 

Joe Mrak:

Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Sheriff. It’s been a pleasure

 

Performance Services:

To read more about the Tipton County Project and to see photos of the new facility. Visit performanceservices.com/project and look for the Tipton County Sheriff’s Office. There, you can also learn more about the progressive design-build process and dig deeper into the services that Performance Services provides.

Thanks so much for listening.