By William Petroski
Des Moines Register
DES MOINES, Iowa — A glistening new $132 million state maximum-security prison at Fort Madison remains empty about three months after it was scheduled to begin housing Iowa’s most dangerous inmates.
The sprawling high-tech campus of the new Iowa State Penitentiary was expected to be occupied in March. Prison leaders had planned the transfer of 550 inmates in a tightly orchestrated security operation involving scores of state, city and county law enforcement officers.
But the move from the old penitentiary to the new prison has been put on hold indefinitely because of problems with a geothermal heating-and-cooling system that was improperly designed, according to state officials.
Full story: Snag keeps Iowa’s new prison empty