KINCHELOE, MI (AP)-- The Michigan Department of Corrections is moving forward with reopening the Hiawatha Correctional Facility after making about $8.9 million in upgrades at the Chippewa County facility.
The department determined it was less expensive to upgrade security at Hiawatha, which closed in 2009, than to make similar changes at nearby Kinross Correctional Facility. The Kinross facility will be closed.
Department spokeswoman Holly Kramer tells the Detroit Free Press that before month's end the state plans to empty Kinross, which houses about 1,600 inmates. She says about 1,280 will move to the Hiawatha prison.
Kramer says the rest will move to the nearby Chippewa Correctional Facility, where about 300 beds and 23 employees were added.
The Hiawatha prison will take on the Kinross name once the move is complete.
