The jail is coincidentally located near the 33rd Street business park, one of the area's hottest industrial submarkets.

If Haskell, a national general contractor with jail construction experience, can't do the expansion for the budgeted $25 million and bring the job in after 12 months, elected officials say they will give the work to Centex-Rooney Construction Co. of Fort Lauderdale, FL, the county procurement staff's initial selection.

The contract hasn't been signed. The first-phase was originally scheduled to be completed by November 2002. Now Haskell is telling the county it needs at least 16 months and $3 more million to do the job. Elected officials who voted 5-1 for Haskell in September 2000 are furious.