Officials To Provide Update On Wayne County Jail Project
DETROIT (WWJ) - Officials are expected to reveal new information on a proposed Wayne County Jail and criminal justice center on Wednesday.
County Executive Warren Evans is holding a 10 a.m. news conference with an announcement regarding the proposed criminal justice center.
On Monday, the Detroit Board of Education signed off on a sale of nearly one-and-a-half acres of property in the area of I-75 and I-94. The district will be paid $220,000 by Beaubien Associates, an affiliate of Dan Gilbert's Bedrock Management Services. The purchase is part of a land swap with the City of Detroit and Wayne County to provide Gilbert the abandoned jail construction site on Gratiot for future development.
The county in December announced it was abandoning plans to complete the half-finished jail on Gratiot near Greektown in downtown Detroit. The unfinished 2,000-bed jail is an eyesore across from the county courthouse. Construction stopped in June of 2013 because the project was wildly over budget, with cost overruns totaling more than $90 million. The idled site is reportedly costing taxpayers about $1.2 million a month in bond payments, storage and security.
If the Rock deal goes through, Gilbert's company would bulldoze the failed jail, and build a mixed-use development on the site. The development initially was proposed to include a Major League Soccer stadium, but new plans call for MLS to be played at Ford Field if the league chooses Detroit.
