Tennessee firm considers Storey County for private prison

VIRGINIA CITY -- A Tennessee company might build a privately run prison at an industrial park in Storey County.

Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison business in the country, has started an application for a permit that would allow it to build a prison on about 500 acres of land in the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center east of Reno.

The company says the facility, still in the planning phase, would have up to 3,000 inmates and employ 600 workers.

Spokeswoman Louise Grant said the company does not have a contract to build the prison.

Corrections Corporation has a contract to build a federal detention center in Nye County and used to manage a women's prison in Las Vegas about nine years ago, Grant said.

The Nye County detention center was approved by the county in December after two years of negotiations and public criticism of the company and the center's effects on the county.