Natrona County can begin work on a new juvenile detention center now that it has complied with Gov. Dave Freudenthal's demand to build a 24-bed facility and keep the cost to $11 million or less, his juvenile justice advisor told commissioners Friday.

"You can move dirt," Judge Gary Hartman said during a meeting with commissioners.

The county needs to resubmit its application to build a 24-bed facility as soon as possible, and the final approval could come within a month, Hartman said.

The county needs to build a satellite facility of the main adult jail on Bruce Lane to replace the inadequate juvenile detention center on the third floor of the Hall of Justice. The county has saved about $3 million so far, commissioned studies including one funded by a federal grant, and hired Amundsen Associates to design a regional center.

Freudenthal has expressed support for the county's plans. In early September, he announced Wyoming had received $15 million of the federal stimulus package, and $8 million of that was expected to be applied to the county's new juvenile detention center.

But he's told his staff and the commissioners that he wants the facility to be built to the need and to be smaller than the proposed 32-bed regional facility that would have cost more than $13 million, construction manager Jim Chaput said Friday. "If you don't have to spend $11 million, don't."

The state expects the county first to spend its $3 million, and then draw down the stimulus money, Hartman said.

Ron Shosh Jr. of Amundsen Associates showed drawings of the scaled down nearly 29,000-square-foot facility that will have 20 cells, four of which will be double occupancy.

The detention center will have smaller administration, education, visiting, and medical areas, Shosh said.

Suzanne Norton, the in-house architect for the state, asked if the cells could be built without their own bathing and toilet

facilities, because common facilities would be cheaper.

But the adult jail's Ernie Nichols said the juvenile center must conform to the national standards used in the adult jail, which means each cell must have those facilities.

Hartman also wondered if all cells needed to be "hardened" with reinforced concrete, and instead asked if they could be "soft" with wood framing and drywall.

Sheriff Mark Benton didn't like that, saying the adult jail built in the mid-1990s used cheaper materials such as steel doors that were thinner than what jails should have. The county had to replace all those doors 10 years later, he said.

Commissioner Terry Wingerter agreed that quality materials will be better in the long run.

"If you build something, you might as well build it as sturdy as possible," Wingerter said.

Reach Tom Morton at (307) 266--0592, or at tom.morton@trib.com. Check out his blog at tribtown.trib.com.