WINDSOR — The state is taking another crack at identifying a suitable redevelopment plan for the former state prison on County Road.

The Mount Ascutney Regional Commission is asking firms to submit proposals for a master plan for the shuttered Southeast State Correctional Facility, which closed permanently in 2017 and has seen limited use since then.

The state received a grant last year to create a conceptual plan for the prison property, Tom Kennedy, the commission’s executive director, said.

“We have been working with the legislators trying to get them to make a decision on the property,” Kennedy said.

The June 14 request for proposals had several requirements, including two community-wide meetings to gather ideas on potential uses for the site. Additionally, input will be gathered from the Windsor Planning Commission, Selectboard, Windsor Improvement Corporation and Windsor Conservation Commission.

The state-owned compound is a little more than 100 acres with several buildings. The property had been part of a larger 900-acre parcel before the state established the Windsor Grassland Wildlife Management Area on 800 acres several years ago.

The process also will involve meetings with lawmakers on the House’s Corrections and Institutions Committee and the Senate Institutions Committee.

Economic development specialists will develop a cost analysis for three possible paths for the Legislature to consider: continued state ownership; preparing the property for sale or lease; and sale of all or some of the property.

“It will be all very conceptual,” Kennedy said.

The most recent proposal for the property — a juvenile detention center — was rejected by the Legislature in early 2022. Town officials and residents strongly opposed the idea, saying they do not want the town associated with corrections. The prison was built in 1975 and originally was a working farm.

The property, which cost the state $250,000 a year to maintain, hosts occasional police training.

Some of the older buildings on the property are being demolished, Kennedy said.

The state has provided background on the acreage and along with challenges to redevelopment, including the condition of most buildings and the “statutory provisions” that would make sale of the property “cumbersome.”

Still, utility infrastructure including public water and sewer, electrical service and broadband “make it attractive for redevelopment,” the RFP states.

In 2021, a study committee released a report that highlighted some of the barriers to improving the site or selling it. It was generally agreed the presence of barbed wire and the poor conditions of most of the buildings hurt the property’s marketability.

Kennedy, a member of the study committee, said when the report was released, he favored developing a master plan that would include mixed-use development.

The final tasks of the RFP include presentations of the findings and site plan, and a final report with the proposed next steps.

The deadline for proposals is July 28.

Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.