SCI Phoenix, Pa.’s costliest prison, opens in Montco

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Graterford Prison was locked down Wednesday to allow the safe transfer of inmates to the new SCI Phoenix, a state-of-the-art penitentiary whose cost is estimated at $400 million. (Photo courtesy of flickr.com.)

The State Correctional Institution Graterford was locked down Wednesday, 89 years after it opened its doors, to allow the safe movement of inmates to SCI Phoenix, Graterford’s $400 million replacement, on the same 1,700-acre site in Montgomery County. The move, which officials had long projected would be complete by June 30, was delayed for unspecified reasons, writes Samantha Melamed at philly.com.

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The Department of Corrections said in a statement that “several hundred inmates a day” would be relocated but did not say when the move was expected to be complete.

Still unresolved is a dispute over the final price tag for the project: The state Department of General Services has said that contractor Walsh Heery owes $35,000 per day in damages for delays in the prison’s completion. Those fines, accrued since a November 2015, would add up to a $30 million refund owed taxpayers.

To read the full story, click here.

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