Plans for HOD Go Forward
Despite widespread opposition to the proposed $440 million expansion of the Brooklyn House of Detention on Atlantic Avenue, looks like it’s imminent. “The Department of Design and Construction inked a $32.5-million deal to hire Manhattan architecture firm Ricci Greene Associates to transform the prison into a 1,469-inmate facility with ground-floor shopping,” reports The Brooklyn Paper….
Despite widespread opposition to the proposed $440 million expansion of the Brooklyn House of Detention on Atlantic Avenue, looks like it’s imminent. “The Department of Design and Construction inked a $32.5-million deal to hire Manhattan architecture firm Ricci Greene Associates to transform the prison into a 1,469-inmate facility with ground-floor shopping,” reports The Brooklyn Paper. The jail sits across the street from new boutique hotels and a slew of new building projects; might be bad for tourism, but the city contends is best for the judicial process. “It is more efficient to have prisoners in Downtown Brooklyn — near the courts and their lawyers — and it is better public policy to make it easier for families to visit the incarcerated, who currently await trial on remote Rikers Island,” they write. Opponents have vowed to fight the project, either through the ULURP process or in court.
City Says ‘Go’ Directly to Jail [Brooklyn Paper]
Brooklyn’s Jail with Retail is (Maybe) Moving Forward [Curbed]
Randy Maestro … wasn’t he the front man for The Brooklyn Bridge? I’ve met all sorts of people who have passed through the revolving doors of the various administrations and the private sector. The old-timers from the Lindsey administration tend to still be progressives. Folks from the Koch era are often roll-up-their-sleeves types. Deputy mayor for Rudy? Strange bedfellows indeed.
How about they tear it down, dig a big hole, surround it with mangled plywood, and then abandon it for a few years. Then it will fit in with its neighbors on the SE and SW corners of that same intersection.
How can the city justify almost a HALF A BILLION DOLLARS to “fix” a totally unused and recently rebuilt facility!!!
With the interest on this $440M (22M @ 5%) you could practically pay every violent felon in this city $1000 a year to simply move to New Jersey.
THIS IS INSANE
I dont think turning the space into some kind of public/park area would be the best idea. The intersection is dangerous for kids and bikers (the incident a couple weeks ago a couple blocks away?) and carriages and such right where all the cabs and traffic are heading for the bridge. Could spell disaster. The retail on the ground floor is the right direction tho’
AMEN SAM… TEAR IT DOWN
I think that Atlantic Avenue between Court Street and Smith Street would be much, much nicer without the HOD.
redevelopment on both sides could transfomr that stretch into an elegant, urban, boulevard. But the HOD interrupts the streetwall and the pedestrian flow and looms overhead like a sad ghost of Brooklyn’s past.
Its presence diminishes greatly one of the most important stretches of one of the most important streets in Brooklyn.
I am totally in favor of the BHOD re-opening, makes total sense and I never understood why it was closed BUT
I AM TOTALLY APPALLED
that they are going to sink almost HALF A BILLION DOLLARS to do this. (and thats the budget – you know its going to be closer to 1B) – and thats after they sank SIXTY MILLION in 2003 – and then didnt even use it.
It is an absolute disgrace, if it costs that much to fix the existing site – then build the damn thing over by the MDCC or on Rikers Island with other such facilities.
And please dont tell me that it is to save transport money because with the interest on just 10% of the budgect you could afford to transport each prisoner to court by limousine.
Besides the new courthouse isnt even connected to this facility so prisoners WILL STILL HAVE TO BE BUSSED.
This is corruption of the worst kind – I guarantee wholesale graft worse than the School Construction Authority.
I can’t even believe that someone even has the balls to suggest sinking 1/2 a billion dollars into this…..
I don’t think its a matter of people wanting it to reopen, its just that it really doesn’t affect the neighborhood either way, the way it didnt when it was open before. Transporting people waiting for trial to rikers and back would hit taxpayers pockets worse than just reopening it.
I have lived here all my life, and my business is within 1 1/2 blocks and reopening it wont hurt or help either way.
bowl of dicks,
There is no need for anymore condos at all. They can make that strip retail(with restaurants/bars) or with apts above or like the State Street town houses or maybe a small park. There are a million different options but to just double it makes no sense. And btw I live in Boerum Hill and I am not a business owner.