Utah’s new $780M prison starting to take shape. Its utility lines will help the inland port, too.

It’s a big spread of gravel, mud and concrete. Put another way: It’s a construction site.

Look closer at the concrete box a crane lifted off a flatbed trailer Thursday, and you can see what’s being built. It’s a prison. And crews are installing the prefabricated cells one at a time.

“They’re stacked in almost like Legos,” said Mike Ambre, assistant director of the Utah Division of Facilities Construction and Management.

Ambre took journalists on a tour this week of the forthcoming prison.