New prison rising fast in Fort Madison

Visible progress on a new maximum security prison in Fort Madison is moving along faster than many in the Department of Corrections anticipated.

The $130 million project is on pace to be completed by December 2012, according to Iowa State Penitentiary Warden Nick Ludwick.

"The project is really springing up fast from the ground," said Ludwick.  "It's nice to see the beginning of what will be the end product."

Ludwick said there is no set date to begin moving offenders from the old prison, which sits about a mile to the south, to the new one.  Prisoners will be moved once staff is properly trained and ready, which should be sometime in the summer of 2013, Ludwick said.

On Friday morning, Iowa Department of Corrections director John Baldwin joined members of the Board of Corrections to tour both facilities.

"I'm very impressed," said Baldwin.  "The staff, all our contractors, have done a magnificent job.  It's going to be an exceptional building."

The maximum security unit at the current prison is home to more than 500 first- and second-degree murderers.  The capacity of the maximum security sector is 550.  The new prison will have room for 800 prisoners in need of a maximum security setting.

"It will have an impact statewide.  We're going to be able to move some offenders around and put people in the right place in the right program," Baldwin said.

The original cell block at the old prison was built in 1839 by prisoners who carried stone from a rock quarry in Illinois across the frozen Mississippi River.  At this point the state has not decided what to do with the prison, but since it is on the historical registry it will not be knocked down.  Some in the Department of Corrections have speculated that it will be opened for tourism or used as a movie set.

Both Ludwick and Baldwin said the new state-of-the-art facility will be one of the premier prisons in the nation and will act as a "model for the rest of the country."

"They (prisons) only come around every 174 years," Baldwin joked.  "So we're going to have to do it right, and it looks like they're doing a spectacular job."