Old criminal investigations building in Macon torn down for jail expansion
Macon-Bibb County’s jail improvement and expansion project began Thursday with the demolition of a building on Hazel Street.
The James F. Higgins Memorial Building at 651 Hazel St. was demolished Thursday morning. It will become a new, updated parking lot, which should take 14 to 16 months to complete. The existing parking lot will be “where the new jail expansion is going to go,” Sheriff David Davis said at a news conference.
“It’s going to be more convenient for people coming to court and coming to visitation here for the parking and also allow us an opportunity to do construction without interfering with jail operations,” said Mayor Lester Miller.
What was the building used for?
The building was the former criminal investigation building for local law enforcement. Davis said during the news conference that there was “a lot of good police work that took place in this building over these 30-something years that it stood.”
Eventually, it had structural problems, and it became disused, Davis said. He said that the building had “outlived its usefulness to the sheriff’s office.”
“The legacy of the folks that worked in this building and that work that was done out of this building will always be remembered, and this space will always be sacred to those folks that worked in it,” Davis said.
What’s expected of the project
The next phase, which will include a new housing unit and jail upgrades, will follow the completion of the parking lot. Tariffs and rising gasoline prices have affected the pricing of the next phase.
“We had a sliding scale on some prices, so we’re finalizing all that,” Miller said. “We’ll be bringing that (to the) commission in May and June. “We’re going to make this project happen. We’re going to keep it on time. We’re going to work as expeditiously as possible.”
The full project is expected to cost between $28.5 million and $31 million.
This story was originally published April 16, 2026 at 3:19 PM.
