2 New Prisons To Be Built On Stateville Campus; Downstate Facility Moving To Crest Hill

CREST HILL, IL — Crest Hill will soon be home to two new state prisons, Illinois officials announced Friday, with the former Stateville Correctional Center campus set to house a men’s and a women’s facility in a move that would replace both the old Stateville prison and the downstate Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln.

Last week’s news comes more than two years after Gov. JB Pritzker disclosed that both prisons would be rebuilt, with completion anticipated by 2029 and the total cost estimated at $805 million to $935 million. While Friday’s announcement did not include financial details, officials said building two facilities in Crest Hill would shorten the project’s timeline and help control costs.

The two new prisons on the 2,200-acre Crest Hill site will have capacity for 800 women’s beds and 1,500 men’s beds, with infrastructure allowing for additional housing units to be built in the future for the men’s facility, according to the announcement.

Calling the plan “a major milestone in the State’s effort to modernize Illinois’ correctional infrastructure,” the announcement noted Stateville is over 100 years old and some of Logan’s buildings date back to the 1930s.

READ MORE: 'World's Toughest Prison,' Rare Stateville Photos

In a joint statement Friday, Logan County leaders described the state’s decision to move a prison from Lincoln to Crest Hill as “ill-advised and devastating.”

“Let's be clear, this is the wrong move for the correctional system, for the staff of the facility, for our communities, and for those who reside at Logan,” state Sen. Sally Turner, R-Beason; state Rep. Bill Hauter, R-Morton; Logan County Board Chair James Glenn; and Lincoln Mayor Tracy Welch said in the statement.

“Moving the facility will do nothing to improve outcomes for those who are incarcerated there, it will absolutely devastate our local communities, and it will force staff to choose between uprooting their families from their homes or going on unemployment.”

State officials clarified that Logan has benefited from recent investments and will remain open “as operational guidelines allow,” but noted the downstate prison’s current site and alternative locations in the area lacked the space and did not meet the conditions for a new women’s facility.

Stateville opened on the northern outskirts of Joliet along Route 53 in March 1925, and had an operational capacity of 3,020 beds. Notable inmates include infamous killers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, Richard Speck and serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who was executed there in 1994.