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CARIBOU, Maine — The Aroostook County Commissioners voted Thursday to approve a contract for the design of a new county jail.
The contract is with SMRT Architects & Engineers, a New England-based firm with offices in Bangor and Portland. The initial phases of the design process will include site selection and concept design, culminating in helping the county prepare for a bond referendum to fund construction.
The approval marks a significant step toward replacing Aroostook County’s ancient jail, which was built in 1889 and last renovated more than 40 years ago. Federal corrections experts called the building overcrowded and unsafe during a visit in 2024, and a jail commission has been studying options for the facility since 2023.
Under the terms of the contract, the county will pay SMRT $249,830 for the pre-architectural services leading up to a referendum.
The firm and county would negotiate the cost of the final phase of design — including schematic design, preparation of construction documents and bid assistance — following a successful referendum and funding appropriation.
“The agreement before you basically establishes a base architectural service contract that allows the county to complete planning and referendum work while preserving flexibility before committing to the full project,” said County finance director Dana Gendreau, who served from January until Tuesday as interim county administrator.
It’s too early in the process to say when that referendum would be held, Gendreau said, though SMRT estimated in its project bid that the design process leading to referendum could take as few as 11 months.
Under Maine law, the public vote would coincide with either a statewide primary in June or general election in November.
SMRT, which is Maine’s largest architecture firm, has designed numerous buildings throughout the state, including a nursing home at Northern Maine Medical Center in Fort Kent, a planned new Bangor Region YMCA and the L.L. Bean headquarters in Freeport.
The firm also designed several of Maine’s newest jails, among them the Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset and the Somerset County Jail in Madison.
The county entered contract negotiations with SMRT in February.
Commissioners also approved the formation of an eight-member County Employee Jail Committee Thursday that will work with the firm through the design process.
The committee includes Gendreau, new County Administrator Justin Tibbetts — whose first day on the job was Tuesday — Sheriff Peter Johnson, Chief Deputy and former sheriff Shawn Gillen, Jail Administrator Craig Clossey, Sgt. Shanna Duffy, facilities director Roy Guidry and Houlton maintenance supervisor Christopher Tarr.
“The committee that we have at this time has a lot of institutional knowledge of our 140-year-old jail that we currently have,” Gendreau said. “They know what works and doesn’t work, and what we can bring forward to the new jail.”
The employee committee will also work with a new ad hoc Jail Steering Committee. A kickoff meeting between the committees and SMRT will begin the design process, though no date has been set.
A 2025 needs assessment compiled by a consulting group recommended two potential locations for the new jail: in Houlton, where the existing jail is located, or in the vicinity of Presque Isle and Caribou, more central to The County’s population centers.
The report concluded that population shifts have made the existing jail’s location “less than ideal,” and that it was originally built in Houlton because of a former statutory requirement for the facilities to be in the county seat.
“There were indications from some agencies located to the north that a number of arrests are regularly not made in an effort to reduce trips to the current jail,” the report noted.
The consultant, Justice Planners, estimated last summer that the price tag of a new jail could range from $91 million to $112 million, depending on its size, but construction costs have risen since.
SMRT will evaluate up to five locations during the site selection process, Gendreau said.
