ST PETER — An $8.8 million facility to house aging convicts and sex offenders at the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center remains unoccupied a year after construction was completed and nearly eight months after state officials hailed it as “a great structure” at a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

When the Nov. 19 ceremonies, which included public tours of the facility, were conducted, it was already more than two years after the Minnesota Department of Human Services originally projected that construction would be completed.

But even after the ribbon was cut and the tours were guided, the facility remains shuttered because fire and health inspectors have cited the facility for numerous violations, one of which — a hallway too narrow to meet health and fire codes — will apparently be difficult and costly to correct.

Officials directly involved in overseeing the facility and its construction — both at state agencies and the private firms contracted to do the work — have not been eager to talk about the problems at the new forensic nursing home. Requests by The Free Press to be shown the building and its code violations were not granted, and access to the treatment center grounds for a photograph of the nearly $9 million taxpayer-funded building also was denied.

Requests for interviews with those responsible for the facility were turned down by both the Department of Human Services, which operates the treatment center, and the Department of Administration, which handles state construction projects. Instead, inquiries were directed to public relations staff in both departments.

“The Department of Administration is still in possession of the building,” said David Brown, a spokesman for the Department of Human Services in response to the initial request for an interview with department officials who will operate the forensic nursing home. “They built it, they own it.”

Written requests for information submitted to the Department of Administration resulted in several pages of facts about the project and details of the code violations, although key questions remain unanswered. Among them, whether the code violations came about because of poor design or improper construction, how the problems will be addressed, the estimated cost of the corrections, when they will be completed, and who will pay.

“Human Services, Administration, the contractors and the design consultant are currently assessing what needs to be done,” wrote Jim Schwartz, a spokesman for the Department of Administration. “Although there is not yet a completion date for correcting the construction deficiencies, we expect that — and a resolution — soon.”

Long list, narrow hall

Many of the nearly two dozen health department citations and 14 fire code citations appear to be relatively minor and some already have been corrected, according to status reports provided by Schwartz. Others will require some additional construction, including re-installing handrails that are too high, adding missing door hardware and putting in additional sprinkler heads for fire suppression.

But fixing the north-wing corridor that’s too narrow to meet safety standards will be more difficult to correct, and there’s no estimate on how long that will take or what it will cost.

“Admin is working with the contractor and the designer to resolve the issues that are related to the construction, at no additional cost,” said Schwartz in the written response.

The designer, BKV Group of Minneapolis, didn’t return a call requesting comment. General contractor Merrimac Construction, in East Bethel, declined to comment.

Open and shut

The ongoing delays in opening the facility come as a surprise to both residents of St. Peter, who saw media coverage of the grand opening last fall, and to elected officials.

“I had presumed that nothing was wrong ...,” said state Rep. Terry Morrow, DFL-St. Peter. “The ribbon-cutting was the last I heard.”

A Nov. 26 story in the St. Peter Herald, under the headline “Forensic nursing home opens,” quoted Mike Tessner, CEO of State Operated Services, the Department of Human Services division that runs treatment center operations.

“This is a very good day for St. Peter,” Tessner said. “This is a great structure for providing quality nursing home care to this population.”

Morrow said it wasn’t until June that he realized building deficiencies were keeping the facility from being used — and only then because of reports from area residents who are familiar with what’s going on at the treatment center.

“I found out when a good number of folks individually stopped me in the last couple of weeks around town and talked about was happening,” said Morrow, who was elected to the House in 2006. “I never heard from the department that there were any kinds of problems.”

Awaiting answers

Morrow responded with a letter to Human Services Commissioner Cal Ludeman on June 24 to “express my deep concern regarding the forensic nursing home located in St. Peter” and asking “who is responsible for these failures.” He requested a response by June 28.

Human Services forwarded the letter to Administration, and Morrow began to get answers Thursday afternoon — about the same time answers to the list of Free Press questions arrived.

The response was the same: that the parties involved were still working to determine how the fixes will be done, and that completion dates and costs can’t be estimated yet.

Who’s responsible for the additional cost is still being sorted out as well, Morrow was told.

Morrow said he has questions that go beyond the violations themselves, including the months-long delays between when the contractor finished construction and turned the building over to Human Services (July 14, 2009) and when the fire and health inspections were conducted (April 29,  2010).

Part of the answer appears to be that the facility needed to be furnished and equipped before those inspections are conducted, something that took until March of this year.

And all of the recent delays came on top of a sluggish start to construction. In January 2006, the Department of Human Services submitted a strategic planning summary to the Legislature with an update on the funding allocated the previous year for the forensic nursing home. The summary stated that “substantial completion (is) scheduled for summer/fall of 2007.”

In reality, construction wasn’t even under way in 2007. The official ground-breaking didn’t occur until Feb. 20, 2008.

Clipping a wing

One option for finally getting the facility in use might be to block access to the north wing, where the hallway problem exists, after repairs are made in other parts of the facility.

“We understand the corrections required to the north corridor can be completed after the re-inspection of the rest of the facility,” said Wayne Waslaski, director of real estate and construction services in the Department of Administration, in a letter sent to Morrow Thursday.

Morrow said any long-term shuttering of an entire wing of the building is unacceptable.

“I don’t think closing off the north wing is a suitable conclusion, and I suspect the department agrees,” Morrow said.

The design — or construction — of that north-wing hallway didn’t miss the width required by fire and health codes by much. It’s 94.5 inches wide, just an inch and a half short of the required 8 feet, according to the documents provided by Schwartz. But both the health and fire inspectors spotted the violation and cited it.

Schwartz couldn’t answer yet whether that mistake will require the complete removal and reconstruction of a wall.

Dollars and inches

As to whether fewer than 2 inches of width would make a material difference in safety, Morrow said he could only guess that the width requirement has to do with emergency evacuation of residents in wheelchairs and rolling beds — or ensuring there’s adequate space for rescue crews to respond to a fire.

“If the state fire marshal reports that a regulation has been violated that relates to safety, I defer to the state fire marshal,” he said. “... It was no secret that there was a required width.”

Whatever fix is ultimately decided on, Waslaski assured Morrow that every effort will be made to protect tax dollars.

“Throughout this process, the interest of the State and its taxpayers will be at the forefront,” Waslaski wrote in Thursday’s letter.

Morrow said he’s already taking steps to allow the Legislature to verify that and has informed the chairman of the House Health and Human Services Policy and Oversight Committee of the problems.

“I’m going to ask DHS to report to the Legislature who was responsible,” Morrow said. “I’m going to ask the department to report that no tax dollars were lost because of these mistakes.”

One bit of good news for taxpayers about the project to date: The winning construction bid came in at $8.3 million, less than the $8.6 million estimated. The final contract was raised to just over $8.8 million, however, when the DHS requested and funded additions such as a security fence surrounding the facility.