GlobeSt.com UPDATE: Fed Starts Second Prison; Runs Construction Tab to $287M

COLEMAN, FL-The Bureau of Prisons has started site work on the largest penitentiary site in the United States–an $89 million, 884-cell men’s correctional facility next to its $198 million, 4,895-cell facility in this rural Sumter County town of 3,876 permanent residents.

The site is 95 miles northwest of Downtown Orlando.

The total inmate population when the new structure is completed in 2004 will be 5,895, almost double the town’s permanent population. At 1,440 acres, the federal government is clearly the largest landowner in this county whose total population is 43,678 based on the 2000 Census.