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| The former West Virginia State Penitentiary in Moundsville is used as a haunted house attraction as well as a wedding venue. Photo: Library of Congress |
As prisons close across the US, ideas for their reuse abound – from a yoga studio to a farm for medical marijuana. In Gainesville, since a medium-security jail reopened as a shelter, chronic homelessness in the Florida city has halved
About 150 state prisons closed after the recession, the result of declining prison populations and consolidations meant to save on operating costs. Many of the properties have sat vacant for years, costing money to maintain, inviting vagrants and reminding locals of jobs that have disappeared. But across the country, the properties are increasingly taking on new life.
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| The prison in Coalinga, California, which may be turned into a marijuana farm. Photo: Sam Levin for the Guardian |
In some instances, states are selling, transferring or leasing the properties to businesses or nonprofits. A nonprofit in Manhattan will soon convert a closed women’s prison into an office building for organisations that serve women. In California and Colorado, entrepreneurs are eyeing the secure walls of two closed prisons as a perfect place to grow medical marijuana.
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| The Liberty Boston Hotel, once the iconic Charles Street Jail. Photo: National Geographic Image Collec/Alamy |
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| Prison site in Schoharie County |
A plan to turn an old prison site in Schoharie County into a centre where old cars are recycled failed after local opposition.
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| STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The Arthur Kill Correctional Facility. Broadway Stages planing to spend more than $27 million to buy and renovate former prison site, the Arthur Kill Correctional Facility |
Another prison in Madison County was set to open in 2015 as a summer camp for science and technology, and then as a yoga studio, but nothing has yet opened on the site. And a production company has said it wants to create a movie studio at the site of a closed prison on Staten Island, but a deal with the state hasn’t closed.
State officials such as Alexis Offen, vice president of real estate with Empire State Development, the economic development arm of the state of New York, know it’s important to get the sites up and running again. The state’s prison population fell from about 63,800 in 2007 to about 52,200 this year, and the state has closed 13 prisons since 2011.
“While the state has saved hundreds of millions of dollars closing prisons, I think we recognise the impact that a prison closure has on a local community, especially in more rural communities,” Offen said. “And that’s why we have worked so closely with folks on the ground … to produce reuse plans.”
Source: From jailhouse to marijuana farm: empty US prisons get strange makeovers
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