Work on a $10 million expansion of the Maui jail has been stalled for months after a construction crew unexpectedly discovered buried conduit on the site designated for the new facility.

It is the second time in recent years that a Maui jail project has become mired in long delays.

Corrections officials broke ground on the 32-bed medium security women’s dormitory in 2022, and that jail expansion was supposed to be completed early this year.

But members of the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission visited the construction site at the Maui Community Correctional Center last month and, during a walk-through, commission staff essentially found a hole in the ground surrounded by yellow hazard tape.

F&H Construction was awarded a $9.95 million contract for the dormitory project in 2021, according to state procurement records.

Dan Blackburn, F&H Construction division manager, said discovery of underground conduit that was not included on the plans was one of several setbacks that delayed the project.

The conduit holds communications lines for the jail, and the company finally had to hire an engineer to help develop a workaround, he said.

Another problem was that chillers for the jail were supposed to be relocated off the construction site before F&H began work, but that didn’t happen, Blackburn said. He said F&H was then tasked with moving the chillers, which resulted in a change order worth about $1.6 million.

Blackburn said he is unsure how much those issues delayed the project, but said he now expects to resume construction within 30 days.

The project is being managed by the state Department of Accounting and General Services, which did not respond to a request for comment.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a written statement that there will be extra costs because a new foundation system was needed to accommodate the newly discovered duct work, but “we don’t know how much the costs will be at this time.”

Meanwhile, the state is continuing its years-long effort to move the entire jail.

The state spent $14 million on design work, engineering and consultants for a new jail that was planned for Puunene, but that project still has not been built.

The Puunene jail project was placed on hold in 2016 after Gov. David Ige’s administration decided to focus on building a new jail at Halawa to replace the Oahu Community Correctional Center. The Oahu jail has not yet been built yet, either.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation told lawmakers on the Senate Ways and Means Committee earlier this year that it still intends to move the Maui jail, but did not provide a timeline for that project.

The department said in a written statement Thursday that “this is an active planning project for a new MCCC that will be located within the Pulehunui Regional Development District which is being planned by the Hawaii Community Development Authority.”

The Maui jail has been coping with severe overcrowding for decades, but the headcount at the facility has declined significantly since last summer, according to the oversight commission.

A report on the June visit to the jail by commission Interim Oversight Coordinator Cara Compani shows the population at MCCC dropped by 28% since the commission last visited the facility in May 2023, from 299 inmates a year ago to 215 last month.

That allowed the jail to close two dormitories and transfer corrections officers in those dorms to other housing units to fill vacancies on the MCCC staff, according to Compani.

However, two housing units where women inmates were held last month were at 150% and 200% capacity, the report noted. A total of 43 women inmates were at the jail during the commission’s walk-through.

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.