Pender County is in the final stages of constructing the county’s largest individual facility. It’s a 100,000-square-foot building with a $65 million price tag.
The project is over a decade in the making: a brand-new law enforcement center that will transform the Pender County Sheriff’s Office from top to bottom, moving public safety operations from some of the county’s oldest buildings into what will be its newest and most expensive facility.
Sheriff Alan Cutler has called it “a long time coming,” and the new facility will address everything from inmate detention and the 911 call center to evidence storage and staff offices.
Moreover, as Pender County continues to grow by leaps and bounds, the project is evidence that the local government is willing
to invest big in public safety for its residents.
What’s being built and why
According to Cutler, planning for a new sheriff’s office and detention center began back in 2011 under then-sheriff Carson Smith. However, a location couldn’t be secured at that time.
Cutler said discussions resumed after his election in 2018. Smith, who had then been elected to the N.C. House of Representatives, helped Pender County secure land from the state for the purpose of building the law enforcement center -- which Cutler said was the state recognizing Pender County’s need in this department.
"The need has been there," Cutler said. "Over the past 20-plus years, Pender County has experienced significant population growth, and the sheriff’s office has expanded accordingly."
With this growth, Cutler said, the current facilities no longer provide enough space or operational capacity to support his personnel or the services provided to the public.
And the sheriff’s office feels the effects daily.
Sarah Fulton, assistant county manager, said that old buildings mean that maintenance issues such as roof leaks and air conditioning failures are becoming constant. Maintenance even extends to aging jail locks.
Lack of space in offices means deputies crammed two or three to an office, Fulton said. And perhaps most pressing, lack of space in the jail means the county has to ship inmates across the state -- incurring a daily cost and allocating resources to transporting inmates outside of county lines. The new law enforcement center doesn’t just represent an investment today, Cutler said, but also in the next 20 years of growth.
While the sheriff's office and the county itself have both grown, crime hasn't. According to data from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, total crime in Pender County dropped by over 50% between 2015 and 2024 -- from 1,340 reported offenses to 625.
Despite the overall decline, violent crime incidents increased by about 17% in that same period -- going from 91 to 106 offenses. On the other hand, property crime plummeted from 1,249 offenses to 519.
Cutting cost
The law enforcement center will be located about a mile north of Burgaw on Old Savannah Road -- a plot of land that most county residents aren’t likely to pass by on their daily commutes.
For many residents, it might be an out-of-sight, out-of-mind situation. But the new facility will improve operations for the sheriff’s office in several tangible ways, Cutler said.
For one, a new building is expected to cut the constant maintenance currently required. The current Pender County jail was built in 1978, while the sheriff’s office building was constructed in 1953.
"In the near future, if we didn't start this project, we would be spending even more money than we are now … spending a lot on maintenance," Cutler said.
The sheriff’s office will also save money and time when it comes to transporting inmates.
The jail has 92 available beds for inmates. But according to Major Michael Collier, the sheriff’s office can face capacity issues even when all 92 beds aren’t filled due to not having enough cells for a particular classification of inmate.
Whenever this happens, the county must pay to house the inmates elsewhere -- up to $50 per person per day.
"What we're really looking forward to in the new building is reversing that and having enough beds where we can house inmates from other counties," Cutler said. "Instead of spending $50 a head, we'll be taking in $50 a head per day."
A better, safer jail
Once complete, the law enforcement center will combine several public safety elements that currently operate out of different buildings. The new facility will bring enhancements to key public safety functions, including an expanded 911 call center and a sheriff’s office designed for growth.
The most dramatic and obvious change, however, will be the detention center.
About two thirds of the facility will be taken up by the detention center, which will be capable of housing 232 inmates -- more than double the current capacity.
But the new jail isn’t just about fitting more bodies. Being able to properly classify inmates and separate populations will make the jail safer for both inmates and detention center staff, Cutler said.
Cutler is especially excited about the opportunity for more inmate programs.
"The new building is going to offer us opportunities to offer transitional programs, so our inmates will be better equipped to adjust back into society when they leave our facility," Cutler said.
The sheriff said that the current jail allows for one-on-one programing, but there isn’t space for groups. Cutler said he’d like to incorporate more educational, religious and mental health programming for inmates to take advantage of, with the ultimate goal of reducing recidivism -- the tendency of a criminal to reoffend. There is strong evidence that such programs are associated with reductions in reoffending.
"We're very much looking forward to cutting down on that revolving door that brings people back into our facility,” Cutler said.
Planning for the future
Fulton, who is the county’s project manager for the law enforcement center, highlighted how the facility was designed not just for the growth the county is experiencing today, but also for the growth expected in the coming decades.
"In some projects, we hear, ‘oh, well,’ this building was designed and has vacant offices," Fulton said. "Yes, it should have vacant offices so that we can we can grow because otherwise in five years, we're out of space."
Elements such as the 911 center were designed so that the county can expand them as the need arises.
According to Cutler, the new facility is expected to be fully open on Jan. 1, 2027 -- a touch behind the original estimated opening of fall 2026 set when the project broke ground in late 2024.
In total, the project cost around $65 million. While the sheriff’s office expects to save money on maintenance and transportation, the new jail will also bring new costs, mainly in the form of the 25 new positions required to operate the facility.
But nonetheless, it’s an investment the county is confident in. Fulton acknowledged the cost was high but said that’s what it took to ensure the county would have a public safety building that lasted for decades to come.
For Cutler, it will be a step into the future of public safety in Pender County.
“It's my hope that with the new facility and the new technology, and especially with our detention center and the programs that we'd like to implement in there, that it could possibly be one of the best things that's happened to our county,” Cutler said.
Charlie Kingree is the Pender County and trending topics reporter for the StarNews. He can be reached at ckingree@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Pender invests $65M in law enforcement center as population surges
