County to Reject Consultant McClure for Jail Project

SAN ANGELO, TX -- Tom Green County Commissioners Tuesday are set to end negotiations with McClure Consulting, LLC and reject all bids for consulting services for the new jail project.  

Back in June, commissioners voted unanimously to enter into negotiations with Gary McClure, who started his own consulting company in April after spending decades leading Templeton Construction of San Angelo.  

County Judge Steve Floyd said Tuesday, “The court has changed its mind,” on the need for a consultant on the project.  At the meeting in June, Pct. 4 Commissioner Bill Ford said, “I don’t think we need it. I’m not opposed to seeing what it costs, but I can’t see spending extra money on the jail when we really don’t have extra money to spend.”

As we reported earlier, Templeton Construction was the general contractor for many San Angelo landmarks and was a fixture in major construction projects in West Texas including San Angelo Stadium, the Junell Center/Stephens Arena at Angelo State University, the Tom Green County Library, and many churches and hospital additions.  

Templeton closed its doors in San Angelo in early 2017 and stopped doing business in San Angelo.  The company appears regularly on the San Angelo City Council Agenda for discussion in executive session.  Templeton’s last project with the City was the renovation of the San Angelo Regional Airport terminal building.  

The new jail project is budgeted at $51 million.  It will have 328 beds and room to expand as needed on county land near the Roy K. Robb Men's Community Corrections Center in the northeast corner of the county off U.S. 277.  The plan calls for using an existing 288 beds in the current jail for a total of 616 beds.  Kenny Franke Architects of San Angelo designed the new facility while White Construction of Austin will construct the new jail.  

Construction work continues at the new jail site.  According to County Maintenance director Don Killam, contractors are pouring the tilt walls at the sight.  The new jail should be completed in the spring of 2019.