Three sites possible for remand centre
New provincial cabinet will make decision
Jeff Holubitsky, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Monday, December 11, 2006
EDMONTON - The province has narrowed its search for a location for Edmonton's promised new remand centre to three potential sites, a local MLA says.
One site is near Alberta Hospital in the northeast, one is near the Young Offenders Centre north of Castle Downs and one is adjacent to the current downtown facility at 9660 104th Ave., Edmonton-Castle Downs MLA Thomas Lukaszuk said Sunday.
No decision has been made, he said.
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Font: ****Before the site can be chosen it must be approved by the provincial cabinet, to be named by premier-designate Ed Stelmach after he is sworn in later this week.
"All the studies and sites, and pros and cons, have been looked at so we have all of the empirical data; all we have to do is make a ruling," Lukaszuk said.
Though Lukaszuk talked of three potential sites, Andy Weiler, a spokesman for the Alberta Solicitor General, said the province is also considering a site in Fort Saskatchewan.
Lukaszuk expects a decision to be made in the near future.
"We need that remand centre because judges have started dispensing significantly lowered sentences to our criminals because of the fact that the current remand is so overcrowded," he said.
The province announced in July it had set aside $308 million to build a 2,000-bed replacement for the facility.
At the time, the plans were welcomed by Mayor Stephen Mandel and representatives of the John Howard Society and the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, which represents guards.
When it opened in 1979, the centre was intended to hold 338 people but has housed as many as 750 in cells often shared by two to three inmates.
The centre, which holds inmates who have been charged with crimes but not convicted, has faced mounting criticism because of the pressures created by mixing first-time offenders with repeat, often violent criminals.
Construction of the new centre would likely begin next year.
Lukaszuk said public safety is not an issue in picking the new site, because high security measures make escape extremely unlikely.
"In Alberta, we haven't had an escape from a remand centre yet," he said. "When escapes occurred, they always occurred at the courthouse.
"Risk is not a factor at all because these prisoners are transferred into vehicles in a parkade within the centre and then they are simply transported to court." He said the new centre will likely not be more than four storeys high.
"From the outside you would not know it is a remand centre, just like the one downtown," he said.
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© The Edmonton Journal 2006
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I think that from the ground, it will seem much more non-contextual. But the massing is not that bad. I assume the curve is so that half the units don't face (or feel like they face) the parkade. Just so I don't sound too cynical, I do think that the Robbins Health Learning building continues to look very promising. 
I hope to all things sacred that this is not the location. This area is NOT ready for that type of development, and I should know, I work across on 108th street. Way too much industrial in this area, hell, they have an old tire storage yard about 1 block west, behind said abort!on
from me, if that is to be the location *crossing fingers that it isnt*
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