The Island County Jail has reached the end of its useful life and renovations would be impractical and extremely expensive, according to a study completed by a consulting firm.

The only real solution is to build a new jail, the Island County Jail Feasibility Study shows.

County officials haven’t decided where a new facility could be built. In an interview, Island County Sheriff Rick Felici said several sites have been identified, but the best option might be to raze the current annex building — which includes the jail, annex office space and the juvenile detention facility — and reconstruct a bigger and better space on the footprint.

The report presented to Island County commissioners at a workshop meeting this week held no surprises but confirmed problems officials have been pointing to for years.

“We keep regurgitating reasons, but the reality is it’s worn out,” Felici said.

The commissioners and sheriff began the process of studying options for dealing with the aging jail last year, knowing that they will likely be asking voters to approve a bond measure for a new facility.

The county selected CGL Management Group and local architect KMD to guide the process by interviewing stakeholders, assessing the facility and the future needs, analyzing potential sites and creating a cost estimate.

Facilities Director Ryan Beach presented the study of the “funky building” that consists of the jail, an annex with officers and the juvenile detention facility. The building has shared walls between offices in the annex and the jail.

“Mechanical system, electrical system and plumbing system are at the end of their life, and we are seeing cascading failures more frequently,” he said.

The electrical system is especially problematic, he said. The system is from Pacific Electric, which went out of business 40 years ago. In the last three years, circuit breakers or panels had to be replaced at least five times.

“It’s caused mainly by water being routed over and near electrical in the building, which is not a practice that we want to do today,” he said.

If the main breaker on the building is lost, he said, the inmates would all have to be moved out and the planning and public health offices would close.

In addition, Beach explained that the study shows the jail has limited bed space for the inmate population, lacks enough room for programs, isn’t ADA compliant, has an emergency generator that is beyond its usable life and has already failed, has no access to daylight and doesn’t have medical or mental health housing. Also, the jail is configured with indirect supervision of cells, which isn’t a model that’s used anymore in corrections.

All the commissioners agreed that a new jail is needed.

Commissioner Janet St. Clair said the problematic facility impedes the jail’s ability to rehabilitate offenders and help them to become productive members of the community.

Commissioner Jill Johnson said people who may not care about the welfare of inmates should at least care about the staff.

“You shouldn’t have to spend 12 hours of your day in a dark dungeon kind of a vibe working with a difficult population,” she said.

The officials agreed that educating the community will be vital to the success of the plans.

“I think the harder questions are going to be, how much does it cost and where is it going to be?” Felici said.