When the new Butler County Prison opened last year, the county got rid of a longtime problem — the shortage of space to house its growing prisoner population.

With the opening of the prison, the county was able to bring back a number of prisoners who were being housed in other counties' lockups, and the additional space in the new prison also provided Butler County judges some additional flexibility in terms of prisoner sentencings.

In addition to the county's prisoners, the new facility now is being used to house some state prisoners.

Monday morning the task began of ridding the county of another problem — the old prison. Employees of Pittsburgh Demolition of Oakmont began tearing down the old structure, making way for eventual construction of a new office building.

Bill O'Donnell, county chief clerk, told the Butler Eagle last month that the county commissioners' goal is to house human services and adult probation offices in the new building. He said human services employees are crammed in the government center due to limited space.

Meanwhile, the adult probation staff is using rented space in the city's tier parking garage.

No timetable has been announced for the office building project. Like many county governments, Butler County is dealing with budget constraints — although this county government's financial condition is better than many others'.

Regardless, county leaders must wrestle with the reality that construction costs only are going to go up. Thus, delaying the proposed project might not save much money in the end.

But for now, not going ahead with the project will mean a temporary break for the taxpayers.

There would have been no advantage to keeping the old prison building. The job of converting it to office space — if any reasonable possibility existed for doing that — would have been a major challenge involving an astronomical cost.

In this instance, building new is better. And, there's no reason for nostalgia over the old prison's demise. Its time has passed, it's in no way a monument, and relegating it to memory is the best option.

So, for those who like to watch a building demolition, the show has begun. Like on Monday, demolition equipment in coming days will continue to tear at exterior and interior walls. That will continue until the building is reduced to rubble.

A small contingent of county officials and workers gathered along the tier garage Monday morning as the demolition project was set to begin. Beyond that, the work attracted little other attention — earning the kind of goodbye that's warranted.

The old prison at one time was an asset, but it increasingly lost that status as need exceeded capacity.

With the opening of the new prison last year, the old building became a full-fledged liability, but it will be a liability not much longer.

The $174,800 contract under which the structure is being razed can be regarded as money well spent.

— J.R.K.