SUNBURY -- Two Northumberland County commissioners announced on Thursday plans for the new prison will move forward at the former Celotex site in Sunbury.
If all goes according to plan, empty land in Sunbury, which is the former Celotex site, will be the new Northumberland County prison by the end of next year.
The announcement came Thursday from commissioners as they finished the purchase of the property.
Commissioner Vinny Clausi says the plan is to start building the new prison in November.
People who live near the new prison location have mixed opinions.
"Well, I'm not too happy about it being right down the street in case someone would break out. I mean, it's unlikely, but I have a 12-year-old daughter," said Sunbury resident Rick Hoffman.
"No matter where it goes, there's going to be problems, people complaining about it," added Sunbury resident David Ward. "It could be a good thing or a bad thing. I guess we'll never know until it's done."
"If I see any of them get out, I'll have a shotgun in here and they won't go far," said Bill Funk of Sunbury.
Clausi says the new prison will cost taxpayers around $35 million, but Northumberland County commissioners are trying to get state grant money.
"They should have had the old prison insured a little bit better so that we didn't have to pay $35 million," said Hoffman.
Clausi also says it costs Northumberland County taxpayers around $6 million to house the inmates at prisons around the state, a cost the new prison will put a stop to.
"It's costing the taxpayers more money to do it that way than it would to just build another prison," said Ward.
Previous plans had called for a new Northumberland County courthouse to be built alongside the prison. Clausi says plans for that are currently on hold while commissioners focus on getting the prison up and running.
Clausi says work on the prison should take about a year and he expects construction to be finished at the end of 2016.