Cuyahoga County is seeking to buy property at 2700 Transport Road where it can build a new jail. A shipping container storage yard currently located at the site would be moved to another property 2 miles south.John Kuntz, cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio – For some, questions linger about the possibility of renovating the Cuyahoga County jail, but those with final say over its fate seem set on building a new facility outside of downtown.

Resolutions being introduced to council on Tuesday will start the countdown to finalizing where the county plans to locate a new jail and how it will pay for it.

None of the items should come as a surprise: The county is pursuing the controversial 2700 Transport Road property as the site for the new 1,900-bed jail and, as Executive Armond Budish suggested nearly a year ago, the county wants to permanently extend a soon-to-expire quarter-percent sale tax to pay for it.

The first resolution will give the county control over the 40-acre Cuyahoga Valley Industrial Center in Slavic Village so that it may eventually transfer purchase rights to a shipping container storage business, which could buy the property for $6,407,000 and relocate there. That will free up the land where the business is currently located -- about two miles north, at the Transport Road site -- for the jail.

The county then plans to buy the Transport Road site, which combines three parcels totaling over 44 acres, from UTS Realty, LLC, for $20 million.

In preparation for taking on new debt to build the jail, the county is also seeking to extend the quarter-percent sales tax “for a continuing period of time.” The tax was previously set to expire in September 2027.

Finally, the county is seeking to create a Justice Center Capital Projects Fund to house the tax collections “for the construction of a new County correction center and County courthouse and related improvements,” the legislation reads.

Documents do not indicate how much the new jail could cost. One estimate that has been used for years set the price at $550 million, but those numbers are dependent on the final design for the jail and anticipated building costs, which officials have already been warning are skyrocketing amid inflation and supply chain shortages.

In a media release about the resolutions Friday, Budish touted some of the actions the county has already taken to promote “fairness in the criminal justice system,” including opening the Diversion Center and building Central Booking to help nonviolent offenders avoid jailtime. He characterized building a new jail as extending fairness to those who do still need to be detained.

“Based upon in-depth studies and investigations, it is clear that our current jail is outdated,” Budish said in the release. “A new jail will be more safe, efficient, and effective both for the prisoners and the corrections personnel, and will enable the County to satisfy all state standards.”

Though the items are being introduced Tuesday, it will be another month before council discusses them. The body is set to take its fall break and will not return until Sept. 13, at which point the resolutions are expected to be heard in the Committee of the Whole.

If the items advance without opposition, council could give its final approval by Oct. 11.

“The legislation will go through multiple council and committee meetings before a vote is held,” the county said in its news release.

The county also pledged to continue working with the Justice Center Executive Steering Committee and said, “future decisions will be made through that group.”

The steering committee, which has been helping to determine the best way to improve conditions in the jail, is also expected to meet before council’s final vote to review new evidence related to the proposals. The group previously delayed voting on whether or where the county needs to build a new jail, while it awaited the results of two additional studies requested.

One of the studies took a deeper look at the environmental conditions at the Transport Road site and what it might take to remediate. Some of the committee members raised concerns about whether the land -- the site of a former Standard Oil refinery, known for having many toxic chemicals -- could ever be cleaned up enough for residential use, which is the official classification for a jail.

The other study, which was approved earlier this week, is expected to give a second opinion about whether the jail can be adequately renovated and remain part of the Justice Center complex. Committee members requested the review to better understand what improvements have been made in the jail since the county’s initial conditions assessment in 2014, and what else might need to be done to achieve the county’s goals for staff comfort and inmate care.

The results of both studies will be available for review at the next committee meeting, as well as next steps for continuing discussions on what to do with the courts tower, project consultant Jeff Appelbaum told members in an email Friday. The date of that meeting has not yet been set, but he assured it would happen “in advance of any vote by County Council.”

Appelbaum also offered committee members an opportunity to tour the county jail as well as Franklin County’s newly constructed jail, which has been described as a model of progressive jailing standards.

A community meeting is also being scheduled for the week of Aug. 15 to allow the public to weigh in on the design of the new jail and its proposed location, Appelbaum said.

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