Another vacant Harris County building: This is how much you're paying for it

We all know about the ongoing saga over the Astrodome. But the so-called "Eighth Wonder of the World" isn't the only vacant county-owned building Harris County taxpayers are paying to maintain.

1301 Franklin, which served as the Harris County Jail from 1980 to 2003, is currently vacant. Officials say even then, it was notorious for its problems.

"The number one complaint from our call takers was rats running across keyboards. We opened up the floor because all the wiring was underneath the floor. We found beds of snakes. It was horrible. It was absolutely horrible," said former sheriff and current County Commissioner Adrian Garcia.

Commissioner Garcia took Eyewitness News on a tour of a jail he said had never even received a state jail certification due to its faulty air-conditioning system.

A 2021 county study estimated taxpayers are paying $628,000 dollars a year to maintain the building.

After years of indecision from county officials, Commissioner Garcia is now spearheading yet another study.

He's trying again to figure out what to do with this outdated, empty building.

The commissioner said he doesn't want to sell it.

"This building has lighting in it, it does have heating and A/C in it, and there is water running through it. So we are paying for some functionality of this building," he said. "This particular building is one that I'm not quite ready to let go of. It's too strategically located."

The building is connected to Houston's downtown tunnel system, which is why you never see inmates out and about.

Guards still use the underground tunnels, leading inmates under our streets from the current county jail, over the bayou, to the courthouse.

So, if the building is sold or turned into a non-secure facility, the tunnel system would have to be reconfigured and closed off.

Commissioner Garcia said he'd like to use the building for some kind of transitional housing.

"A lot of the population of the Harris County Jail has an Anywhere USA address, which effectively means they are homeless," he said. "They finish their time in the county jail, we release them in the streets of Houston, and then we have the concerns and complaints of the residents of Harris County." Garcia didn't say just how that would work.

Just as with the Astrodome, there is another option: tearing it down. County officials in 2009 estimated it would cost $6.5 million to do so.

"Every year the costs continue to escalate on what it would cost to demolish this immensely well-fortified building," Commissioner Garcia said.

Tonight on Eyewitness News at 10, Pooja Lodhia takes a tour inside the former jail.