State Correctional Institution – Phoenix
The State Correctional Institution – Phoenix is a state prison in Skippack Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, with a Collegeville postal address, in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Operated by Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, it was named after the phoenix bird. It cost $400 million to build, making it the state prison most expensive to construct in Pennsylvania history. It has a capacity of 3,830 prisoners, and as of September 2018, its full time workforce numbered 1,200. Heery International designed the facility. It replaced SCI Graterford. Most prisoners are male, located in the East and West sub units, while it has a re-entry unit for female prisoners with a capacity of 192. The female unit is not in the main prison perimeter. SCI Phoenix is one of two prisons that share Pennsylvania's death row. The department of PA Corrections anticipated that most of the prisoners would be from the area of Philadelphia, and currently SCI Phoenix is the state prison closest to Philadelphia. History The SCI Phoenix buildings were built on the SCI Graterford land area, and the Phoenix and Graterford buildings are about apart, with SCI Phoenix fencing beginning about 1,100 feet east of SCI Graterford's fencing. The first bidding for