And even that is a complex proposition.

The prison is a fenced-in world unto itself, complete with everything from greenhouses to an execution chamber. About 1,200 employees - including doctors and psychiatrists - 1,500 volunteers and 3,350 inmates spend much of their lives there. The 673-acre campus includes a geothermal spring, furniture factory and fields of tree seedlings.

At a meeting Monday, state workers tried to allay concerns about privatizing the prison and to calm some local government leaders' fears that they will be saddled with the State Correc- tions Department's nerve center.

Ken Nye, State Department of Facilities Construction and Management deputy director, said references to privatization were added to the consulting contract after a public comment period ended this month because, "we just felt like we couldn't take private prisons off the table." Likewise, he told a handful of possible consultants not to focus on any specific locations.

"We don't have any preconceived ideas about whether or not the prison should move. This is not about private prisons. We are not trying to identify a specific replacement site," Nye said. "We're looking primarily at issues that affect the financial interests of the state."

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. first posed the idea of moving the prison during the 2004 gubernatorial campaign. And earlier this year, state lawmakers set aside $140,000 to study the economic feasibility of moving the complex somewhere else and selling the land it sits on.

Tooele and Juab counties have been rumored as potential replacement locations. The consultants will have to consider the cost of moving the prison to rural property versus an urban site. Most of the transportation and medical services the complex depends on are along the Wasatch Front, which is also where most of the prison's workers live. And the firm that gets the contract will have to factor in debt owed on the existing buildings.

Corrections Director Scott Carver acknowledges the study budget will not be enough to get into much detail. "The dollar amount of this project will not adequately address all of those other issues," he said. "The biggest concern we have is what about the work force."

Still, consultant Karen Wikstrom says the task is a largely straightforward analysis of real estate. "It's a prison, so that's a complicating factor," she said. "But it's still just evaluating the use of a piece of real estate."