Florida Company Favored to Build, Operate S.D. Jail : Overcrowding: Proposed privately run facility would help to ease the severe crowding of county’s jails.

San Diego city officials on Friday recommended that the City Council choose a Florida company to build a privately run, $6.5-million jail on four acres of county-owned land at the East Otay Mesa Correctional Complex. If built, the facility would become the first privately operated jail in California, correctional officials said.

Assistant City Manager Jack McGrory on Friday recommended that council members authorize the city manager’s office to negotiate with Wackenhut Corrections Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Wackenhut Corp., a Coral Gables, Fla.-based company.

Wackenhut operates 10 detention or correctional facilities in seven states that house 3,456 inmates. Wackenhut opened its first facility, a federal Immigration and Naturalization Services detention center, in 1987. Wackenhut does not operate any jails in California, but it does run a minimum security correctional facility for the state in McFarland, where parole violators are housed.

The proposed $6.5-million, 53,000-square-foot facility would house an estimated 200 people who have been arrested, but not yet tried, on misdemeanor chargers, according to a report issued Friday by McGrory. Annual operating costs would for the proposed facility would be approximately $3 million.

While the proposed facility would be designed to hold 200 inmates arrested by city police, it “could be expanded if additional needs are identified by the city, state or federal government, or any government within the county,” McGrory said.

City officials, who view the facility as one way to reduce jail overcrowding in San Diego, believe that it could begin accepting inmates by Dec. 6 if a contract is awarded by April 9. The city manager’s office needs council approval to begin negotiations with Wackenhut.

An environmental impact report “indicates that (the four-acre tract) can be used for a detention facility,” according to McGrory, who added that county officials have indicated that the land would be made available for the jail.

The Wackenhut proposal, which was selected over two cheaper bids, “was rated highest in every category” except cost, McGrory said. It was also the only proposal to meet all requirements described in the bidding request. Wackenhut was rated highest in experience, program quality, security and supervision and staff quality.

“Wackenhut Corrections Corp. has the experience and financial stability necessary to successfully design, build and operate the city’s Misdemeanor Pre-arraignment Detention Facility,” McGrory said.

A proposal submitted by Behavioral Systems Southwest suggested that the city spend $650,000 to convert the Hotel San Diego on Broadway into a jail capable of housing 300 prisoners. The plan failed to meet standards set by the American Correctional Assn., McGrory said.

W&B; Re-Entry proposed a 200-bed “modular facility” that would be built on a 10-acre parcel in South San Diego. However, that plant failed to meet the correctional standards and the city would need to win a conditional use permit before housing inmates there, McGrory said.

A proposal by Diversified Municipal Services and Eclectic Communications Inc. was “not responsive” to the city’s bidding request, McGrory said.

Wackenhut is a 35-year-old company that provides security services. About $25 million of its $462 million in 1989 revenue was generated by the correctional business, a spokesman said Friday.