TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas officials are looking at converting a soon-to-close juvenile corrections center into a new unit for holding sex offenders indefinitely for treatment after they leave prison.

Acting Department for Aging and Disability Services Secretary Tim Keck said Tuesday the department is working with the state fire marshal’s office to determine how the state’s juvenile facility in Larned would have to be renovated.

The Department of Corrections plans to close the juvenile facility in March.

The state operates both an adult prison and a state mental hospital in Larned in western Kansas. The hospital includes the Sexual Predator Treatment Program.

The number of patients in the sexual predator program continues to grow. Keck told a legislative committee that two dozen of them might be better served in a new medical facility.