By Tracy Overstreet
tracy.overstreet@theindependent.com

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Lane Hickenbottom Hall County Corrections Director Fred Ruiz (right) looks at plans with masonry foreman Al Schwarz Monday in the basement of the former Grand Island/Hall County Public Safety Center, where day cells are being built to hold inmates while they're waiting for court appearances. Lane Hickenbottom New day cells are being built in the area that used to be the Public Safety Center's evidence room. Click Thumbnails to View

The Grand Island Police Department and Hall County Sheriff's Department have moved out.

And remodeling started a week ago at the former Grand Island/Hall County Public Safety Center, 121 S. Locust St.

Today, the building is set to get a new name the Hall County Courthouse Annex.

The Hall County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote on the new name during its regular business meeting that will start at 9 a.m. today.

For 30 years, the building housed offices for police officers and sheriff's deputies, plus part of the Hall County Jail. Now it's set to become the new home for the office of the Hall County clerk of district court and numerous other county functions.

First and foremost, the basement of the new annex will house a "day cell," where inmates awaiting court appearances can be held.

Hall County Corrections Director Fred Ruiz said the same contractor building the new jail, Chief Construction, is handling the day cell remodeling in what used to be an evidence room for police and deputies.

"This wall was knocked down. The floors are up," he said as he walked across a piece of plywood across a construction hole on Monday. "This remodel shouldn't take long."

Once completed, the day cell will have the capacity to hold up to 30 inmates either male or female.

No juveniles will be held in the day cell area, Ruiz said.

But Hall County supervisors are also set to approve a contract today with Grand Island architect Victor Aufdemberge for design of a courthouse and courthouse annex remodeling. That project includes the renovation of the first floor of the new annex into what's called a juvenile attention center a facility that's different from a detention center.

An attention center is a safe place for a minor to be watched voluntarily until a parent or guardian can pick the juvenile up, Hall County Sheriff Jerry Watson previously told the county board.

The minor may be a runaway or may have been picked up for a minor offense that doesn't require incarceration. The Sheriff's Department is to run the juvenile attention center, which has a proposed budget up for approval at today's meeting.

Aufdemberge's contract for the remodeling of the courthouse is to design a third district courtroom on the courthouse's middle floor.

He's also to design an enclosed passageway between the courthouse and the new courthouse annex.

In other action, the board is to discuss water detention cells in the Westroad Estates subdivision.

If you go

What: Hall County board meeting

When: 9 a.m. Tuesday

Where: Hall County Administration Building, 121 S. Pine St.

Topics: Renaming the Public Safety Center as the Hall County Courthouse Annex, signing an architect's contract to remodel the Hall County Courthouse to add a third district courtroom, setting the budget for the juvenile attention center, appointing a committee to address issues such as county burial costs.