City Hosts Design Workshop for Planned Chinatown Jail
On the evening of October 29, officials from City agencies hosted a community design workshop for the Manhattan Borough-Based Jail facility, which is planned to rise at the site of the recently demolished Manhattan Detention Center (MDC) on White Street.
The meeting was held in the lobby of the historic Surrogate’s Court building at 31 Chambers Street (four blocks from the jail construction site).
The Borough-Based Jail plan has become a flashpoint in the race to succeed Mayor Eric Adams. Democratic Party nominee Zohran Mamdani has pledged to move ahead with the project – which is part of a broader plan to close the City’s centralized detention facility on Rikers Island and replace it with four local facilities – while former Governor Andrew Cuomo (who is running for Mayor as an Independent), has vowed to scrap the proposal and instead rebuild the Rikers Island jail.
Lower Manhattan activists and elected officials are opposed to the plan, which is priced at $3.7 billion, although skeptics predict it will likely cost many billions more. Local criticism has focused on the environmental and health hazards that years of demolition and construction could impose on the surrounding community. Once the project is complete (a benchmark now slated for 2032), critics also anticipate crowding on local streets as thousands of staff and support personnel report to the new facility each day.
Chinatown community leader Jan Lee, co-founder of the advocacy organization Neighbors United Below Canal (NUBC), said, “Zohran Mamdani says he will ‘follow the law,’ but he has made no mention of changing it or extending the Rikers closure deadline of 2027.” This was a reference to the original statute authorizing the transition from the centralized detention facility to a constellation of four, smaller jails and mandating that Rikers would be fully decommissioned no later than 18 months from now. But even City officials responsible for implementing this plan have acknowledged that this will not be possible.
“Given the Manhattan jail’s completion date of at least 2032,” Mr. Lee continued, “it is unclear how he can meet that deadline. The NUBC plan delivers a smaller, safer jail on Park Row using two unused civic buildings, away from residents, while freeing two acres for 100 percent affordable housing.” This was a reference to a plan developed by Lower Manhattan community leaders that would set aside the MDC site for rent-stabilized apartments, while moving the planned jail to the site of a nearby federal prison – the Metropolitan Correctional Complex – that was closed in 2021 due to deteriorating conditions.
“Our plan is the only path that moves people off Rikers faster, saves taxpayers money, and provides long-overdue housing for the Chinatown and Lower East Side communities,” Mr. Lee concluded. “To continue on track to build the tallest jail in the world in our community, and the most expensive building per square foot ever built in America, is not aligned with anything we will accept for Chinatown.”
At the prior Community Design Workshop on August 8, Community Board 1 chair Tammy Meltzer, troubled by vague descriptions of the project, raised pointed questions about the City’s presentation, noting, for example, that the slides did not show building heights. She pressed for details about massing and interior floor area for the planned building, which is slated to to rise 335 feet and house 1,040 prisoners.
In May, CB1 enacted a resolution endorsing the NUBC plan, saying that the Board “supports the affordable housing concepts… and the revised location for the Manhattan site of the borough-based jails as a means to have comprehensive plan that addresses the largest of community needs.”
A spokesman for the City’s Department of Design and Construction, which is overseeing the Borough-Based Jail project did not respond to a request for comment.
It’s a good article, seems to have the facts straight and points out the problems the current plan poses with no obvious solution other than what the community has suggested. Now if only DDC is listening. Maybe the current administration feels it’s the next guy’s problem.
Common sense tells you that if Mayor DeBlasio’s plan underestimated the number of detainees to be housed in the four Borough Based Jails and in fact the current numbers are twice what’s projected — where will the extra detainees go? Chinatown already has the tallest jail in the world. No way we’re housing more. Let them loose?!
Double the inmates. Does that mean double the cost? In an emergency and the jail has to be emptied how many guards are needed to escort every floor down? Use common sense and build a humane campus where detainees can have air, space, rehabilitation and mental care facilities.
Every mayoral candidate claims they want to make New York City affordable again, but here’s an actual opportunity to prove it. Instead of more empty campaign slogans, turn this site into housing that serves the people who live here. Are you listening Zohran?
The four Borough-Based Jails are now projected to cost a staggering $16 billion and climbing. You’re telling us that with that kind of money, the City can’t rebuild Rikers — including new, humane facilities and attached courthouses — and fix the systemic problems that already exist? Provide reliable transport to the island if that’s the concern.
Who’s really paying the price here? Not the incarcerated, but the taxpayers and residents who’ll be punished by having these massive jail complexes forced into their neighborhoods when the solution already exists.
I fully support the resolution by cb1 endorsing NuBc s plan for affordable housing that Chinatown desperately need and the nearby Federal jail to be used and renovated instead of building an expensive new tall jail in such a congested Chinatown neighborhood on Baxter st and White street right next to a senior home where their lives and well being would be extremely affected in a negative way during their old age .The foundation below might not even be suitable for building such a tall mega jail that have been so opposed by the Chinese and the Little Italy 2 important immigrants neighborhoods since all these years .Both of our residents deserve better . This would be a win win situation and solution.
I support the plan by NUBC – that the site used for affordable housing Chinatown need and the jail moved to that federal building with renovation.
As a long time resident of Chinatown who is now raising my young children here, I fully agree and support the NUBC plan.
This borough based jail plan was ill-conceived from day one and the City keeps adding to this $8Billion (now $16Billion) white elephant damaging 4 neighborhoods. When finished (in 2032, if they’r lucky!), the jails won’t even have enough capacity to house even 2/3 of the current Rikers population. This stupid plan by deBlasio is now in its 6th year. If they had built a new, state-of-the-art facility on available land on Rikers Island, it would be done by now (and likely with enough money leftover to provide free ferry/bus/car service to the Island). Instead, they’ve crowded all the jailed detainees INTO Rikers while they build these overpriced, under-capacity new jails. Meanwhile, there has been no work on reforming the increasingly deadly culture in Rikers which means it will just get transferred over into prettier buildings. Detainees are being held while awaiting their day in court — what is being done to speed up the court system? This jail plan helps nobody but the architects, construction/demolition companies, PR firms and lobbyists paid to keep it going. Mamdani’s administration needs to stop, rethink and redo this thing. Stop this madness and stop throwing good taxpayer money after bad.
NUBC plan offers an alternative to the City and communith which is great , and preferable, but better yet: check out the Reimagine Rikers plan. Build a new prison consisting of low – rise humane buildings with sunlight and access to outdoor green space. Other countries are trending towards low rise humane prisons not tall skyscrapers rat cells. Let’s lead! NYC has an opportunity to build mung needed affordable housing on Centre St. Chinatown has more than its fair share of prisons homeless shelters, and drug treatment centers. Last significant housing investment in Chinatown was Confucius Plaza! That was OVER 50 years ago! We can have humane prisons ( and save money! ) AND affordable housing!