Windham County Sheriff Keith Clark now says he wants to build an $18 million detention center in north Rockingham.Clark filed a zoning permit application Thursday, less than a week after he announced that a former site in Bellows Falls was not going to work for the project.
Rockingham voters also overwhelmingly rejected the idea in a non-binding referendum on Town Meeting Day.
According to the zoning application, Clark wants to build the controversial criminal justice center on Rockingham Road, near Exit 6 on Interstate 91.
Clark wants to use the 60,000 square-foot facility to hold federal and state detainees waiting trial, as well as house prisoners in transition who are leaving the criminal justice system.
The former site in Bellows Falls did not require public hearings because it was zoned for commercial use. The new site will force Clark to sell his idea to the Rockingham Zoning Board before the public.
