County agrees to purchase land on S.R. 46W for new jail location

After a three-hour joint meeting of the Owen County Council and the Owen County Commissioners on July 27, the county officials voted to purchase 18 acres of land at 909 W. State Road 46 for $1,652,675. This land is slated to be the site of a brand new county jail, but many specifics about costs, exact locations of road access, sewer lines, and even building placement are still being determined.

“I, myself, and I know the rest of the council and the commissioners, have spent hours and hours studying this and making sure that your tax dollars are put in the best possible way,” assured councilwoman at-large Polly Chesser during the opening remarks.

Information presented about the land

Dustin Frye from Build BW in Indianapolis began with a presentation to the joint assembly with details about the progress, design and costs related to the jail project.

Patriot Engineering conducted environmental testing, and no issues were reported at the site in question. A geotechnical report including analysis of the water table and land structural capacity found that the site will support the proposed building using conventional foundations.

“There’s no special foundations or deep foundations that would need to be completed to support this structure, which is extremely positive and a cost savings to the project because the previous sites that we had looked at would have required additional money be spent on the foundation system,” said councilman Joe Frye. “Ultimately, from that perspective this land and site is clear and ready to support the project here.”

Details about the building, including highway access, parking, square footage and additional traffic analysis required by the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) were also clarified.

Clarification of Funding Information

Funding for the entire jail project itself is slated to come from cash reserves and the issuance of a municipal bond. The expected 20-year bond issue is to be funded through a previously approved county income tax increase and backstopped by property tax funds.

“The convention to get you the lowest interest cost is to at all times if possible utilize the property tax as the final backstop. But again that doesn’t force you to use property tax. Your intention since you passed the local income taxes years ago was never to use property tax. We don’t envision that we’re going to use property tax,” explained Jeff Peters, a financial advisor for the county.

The final estimated price tag for the jail project is $38.6 million. However, the building itself is not the only cost that a new jail will bring. Owen County Sheriff Ryan White pointed out that the design of the new jail would require additional staffing.

“You have to have somebody that can respond if there’s someone injured or someone having a medical issue, so you have to have one booking, one on floor, and one in control,” White said. “Right now we only need two because of the way our jail is designed. It’s a linear design. That one would require three. So we would need five extra positions because of days off and stuff like that.”

According to estimates by county councilman Anton Neff, these costs would amount to an additional $365,000 per year. According to White, these costs are necessary to maintain proper staffing levels regardless of the requirements the new jail brings.

“For the last 10 years, we’ve known that we do not have the jail staffing that is required, according to the jail staffing survey that we had as a county, done,” White said. “We have been told for many years we are understaffed, and we are required to have more, and we have failed to do that for a long time.”

“We still need to make sure we’ve identified that cost in these estimates because that may affect decisions and what we do in the building and that kind of thing. So, just want to make sure we don’t lose sight of that cost,” Neff replied.

Extensive Public Questions

For nearly two hours, county officials answered questions raised by the public. Responding to local resident Denise Sudol, commissioners Sam Hobbs and David Risk affirmed their intentions to stay in office until the end of their respective terms.

Questions for the real estate agent facilitating the land transaction, Tilden Keith, instigated an impassioned defense.

“I’ve been really slaughtered recently on social media, which is a very poor thing to be drug through as far as that goes,” Keith said. “I can attest to everything I do… because I tell you everything’s down. There’s nothing been hid. Nothing at all.”

While Tilden Keith is related to councilman Verl Keith, councilman Keith had previously filed a conflict of interest statement with the State of Indiana and abstained from voting on any motions related to the land purchase undertaken that evening.

“We want to make sure that this is above board even though, legally, he might be able to vote, he is going to abstain,” councilwoman Chesser said. “We do not want to even have the appearance of doing something that’s not not correct.”

More comments throughout the night included support for the new jail project, pointing out how long the county has been working toward replacing its current dilapidated structure.

“You know what else doesn’t look good is wasting away thousands of dollars, taxpayer money every day that we sit and wait to do something about this. That’s what doesn’t look good to me,” said Spencer resident Kevin Wright. “So council members, commissioners, I’m asking y’all buy this land tonight and let’s start building this jail. We can talk about the cost of jail and the upcoming steps. This is about the land tonight. Let’s get this land bought. Let’s move forward.”

Questions For the Future

There is also still no clear answer about where the building is to be placed on the purchased property. Initial diagrams show the jail being built at the front of the property, but debate at a previous meeting involved members of the county commissioners considering a build at the rear of the property instead.

“Nothing is set in stone. At this time it has to be up front and could be moved to the back, to the other side, stuff like that. But those will be decisions that we’ll probably make within the next 90 days,” Hobbs added.

What is currently known, however, is that as of July 30, 2026 Owen County now owns the 18 acres of property at 909 W. State Road 46 (between the Owen County Family YMCA and Walmart) and plans for the new jail project are officially moving forward at this location.

Previous reporting about the jail project can be found online at theowennews.org.

A full meeting recording can be found on the Owen County Government YouTube channel: youtube.com/@owencountyingov.