Located in the downtown warehouse district, appropriately enough, the building started life as a warehouse. Today it warehouses life. The former cold-storage building now serves as one of the Harris County Jails, giving new meaning to the slang phrase "Cooler" meaning "Prison." When the jail was designed in 1991 it had 4,144 permanent beds, 500 temporary beds, its own kitchen, laundry, and other facilities. As of 2001, the 650,000 square foot facility is the second-largest jail in the nation. Only the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail holds more people. After the cold storage facility was purchased by the county, construction had to wait for months while the building thawed out.