EPHRATA — Grant County commissioners on Wednesday approved allocating money in the county’s 2021 budget to spend $785,000 to buy 86.9 acres adjacent to state Route 282 as the site of the new Grant County Jail.

Commissioners also approved amendments to the capital facilities plan, which is the list of county projects, to allow for the purchase.

Grant County Central Services Director Tom Gaines said Thursday the sale agreements are under review by the two current landowners, and the property sale should be completed by mid-December. Once it’s completed, Tallahassee, Florida-based CRA Architects, which is designing the jail, will ask Ephrata officials to include the property in the Ephrata urban growth area (UGA).

Gaines estimated that process would take until March or April 2022. In the meantime, planning will continue; many tasks, like the required environmental impact studies, had to wait for a site to be confirmed.

“There’s going to be a lot happening in the background,” Gaines said.

The money for the new jail’s land is from a sales tax approved by voters in 2019. County voters approved the three-tenths of 1% sales tax increase to pay for law and justice projects, including the new jail.

The property, at 14156 Road B.3 NW, in Ephrata, is the Ephrata Raceway Park, which closed in 2017.

The property is divided between two owners. The raceway parcel is 29.99 acres, with a current assessed value of $323,920.

The two remaining parcels lie between the raceway property and state Route 282 and are undeveloped. One is 46.01 acres, with a current assessed value of $167,895. The other is 10.9 acres and has a current assessed value of $109,000.

Commissioners planned to vote on the new jail site Oct. 19, but county officials asked the hearing on the proposal be continued. Gaines said the property had an easement issue that had to be resolved, and said Wednesday it had been resolved.

Gaines said the jail would take up about half the property. The other half could be developed for other Grant County facilities, among other possible uses.

County Commissioner Cindy Carter said the property’s location provides a buffer between the jail and any residential neighborhoods.

Originally, county officials identified three possible sites for the jail, none of which was the Road B.3 property.

County officials hired CRA Architects to search for a suitable site, and commissioners eventually chose a site adjacent to the Grant County Work Release Center at 1631 E. Division Ave. County officials inquired about purchasing additional land at the Division Street site from the Port of Ephrata, but port commissioners announced in August they did not want to sell.