After decades of talk and years of planning, work is set to officially begin on a new Santa Barbara County jail complex.
The main Santa Barbara jail is outdated, and constantly filled past capacity. Multiple County Grand Juries over the years have called for it to be replaced.
A groundbreaking ceremony is set to take place Tuesday afternoon on a new county jail complex in Santa Maria. The Northern Branch Jail will have 376 beds, expanding the county’s inmate housing as well as adding medical and mental health treatment facilities. Plans call for the 133,000 square foot facility to be ready for use in the spring of 2019.
The project was originally budgeted for just under $100 million dollars, but construction costs are higher than expected, pushing the projected price tag to $111 million dollars. A state grant is covering $80 million dollars of the cost, but the county has to pay for the overrun.
