WINDHAM — The Planning Board Oct. 9 approved phase two of the renovation project at the Maine Correctional Center.

Rebuilding the Maine Correctional Center, at 17 Mallison Falls Road, has been in the works for over a decade to increase security and address issues of overcrowding.

Phase one of the project, the creation of a new, 20,017-square-foot maintenance and central plant building, was approved in August 2018. The second phase includes renovations to three buildings.

The overall project, which has multiple phases, will modernize and replace several buildings, including building a new administrative building, demolishing some buildings, creating a new kitchen/laundry facility and constructing a new intake building and medical facility. In addition, ball fields will be moved, parking lots will be rebuilt and expanded and LED lighting and security fencing will be installed.

Owens McCullough, the senior vice president of strategy and client development at Sebago Technics, asked for a lighting waiver Oct. 9 because the lighting design at the entrance to the center needs to be brighter than what is allowed. 

“We think that’s a really important safety consideration for the project. It’s the primary entrance,” McCullough said. “We would ask for a waiver just for that one isolated space.”

The board unanimously granted the waiver.

McCullough said construction has begun on the first phase of the project, and he hopes the new maintenance building will be operational in the spring. The next building to be renovated will be the programs building.

After that, they will “evaluate which (building) goes next,” he said.

The state estimates that construction of the new facility will take five years from start to finish.

At a meeting in July, Planning Board Chairman David Douglass said, “I like this project a lot. This is a really good thing for Windham.”