Wayne County is back in the business of looking stupid, meaning it's time for another episode of Fail Jail. Yesterday morning, the Wayne County Building Authorityofficially approved the inevitable: The $1.2M pile of pre-cast cement cells will really be demolished.
Naturally, Wayne County can't do what everyone else does with their unwieldy trash--wait 'til dark and dump it somewhere near the Packard Plant. Nope, Wayne County will literally crush all 111 concrete boxes, spending $315K in the process.
What this really means, however, is that Wayne County is pretty sure Dan Gilbert will buy up the whole mess after they've cleaned it up. Say goodbye to Fail Jail in the gallery above...
Detroit may have a media outlet dubbed Deadline Detroit, but actual deadlines in this city? Turns out they are completely meaningless when it comes to real estate. The latest is another fail at the Fail Jail site.
Last week, The Dan Gilbert-owned Rock Ventures company presented a plan for a $500-million development described as a "high-rise and brownstone-inspired" residential building. It would include a hotel and retail. The agreement was for Gilbert to plunk down $50 million for 15.5 acres which would get him:
· The Fail Jail site
· The Frank Murphy Hall of Justice
· Wayne County Jail Division 1 and 2 on Clinton Street
· Wayne County Juvenile Detention Facility
When shopping for a new apartment, do you crave the comfort and security only a concrete box can provide? Look no further than the Andrew C. Baird Detention Facility, which Dan Gilbert hopes to convert into condos as part of his proposed $500M entertainment district. The building is one of four buildings Gilbert will inherit should he succeed in acquiring Wayne County's prison-themed property bundle, which includes three detention facilities and one Brutalist high-rise.
Dan Gilbert might soon be the new warden at Fail Jail. According to Crain's, Wayne County wants to sell its disastrous prison development to Dan Gilbert, who plans on replacing the half-finished prison with a $500M entertainment district. If accepted, Gilbert's offer (estimated to be around $40M) nets him more than just the jail's embarrassing remains.
He'll also get several of the county's downtown properties, including the two old jails and the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice. Gilbert's development proposed contains 1.7M square feet of hotel/residential space, plus 200K square feet of retail/parking. The plan has been described as a "mixed-use retail, entertainment, residential and office development that would serve as a gateway to downtown from the east." Wayne County is expected to make the announcement Wednesday afternoon.
Fox 2 News Headlines
The epic journey of Detroit's Fail Jail appears over, as Charlie LeDuff has discovered crews quietly disassembling the construction site, sending the $404M concrete shell to be crushed. Naturally, this makes Charlie go BANANAS. We'll leave the explaining up to him, but keep this in mind: If Downtown really is rid of Fail Jail, it's likely that Wayne County officials have directed their remaining brain cells towards choosing a new (re)developer.
We're seeing some buzz on twitter from a Detroit reporter for Michigan Radio, Sarah Cwiek, that the over-budget half built jail is dunzo. We'll update this post as the story unfolds. The half-built mass of building is already $91M over budget . A previous report indicated that were the whole jail thing scrapped, Wayne County would probably end up selling the land to Greektown Casino, the very entity they bought it from in 2011. UPDATE 3:25pm: There was indeed supposed to be an August 14 meeting in which Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano was to give a decision on the jail. So we're thinking this is now official. This follows a 60-day work stoppage on the project.
Downtown Fail Jail might be a disaster for Wayne County, but the $120M monument to idiocy has become a hot commodity on the free market. Dan Gilbert's push for Greektown 2.0 faces no fewer than four competing bids, one of which comes from Triple Properties — the bargain hunters that scored the Penobscot Building for a mere $5M last year. What really makes Triple a serious contender? They own the mother of all useless properties: the Pontiac Silverdome. If there was a real estate equivalent to a "yo mama" joke, it would be something like, "Your property is sooo useless, its entire roof collapsed and no one cared." The remaining bidders include a Miami company specializing in correctional facilities, an Ohio auction house, and an MSU anthropology professor.
· Penobscot Owners Among 5 Interested in Jail Site [Freep]
Today, Dan Gilbert's people will make an offer to buy the downtown Fail Jail site, giving Wayne County officials an escape from the over-budget, $120M pile of cement they've created. But there is more. As there's no point in buying the jail if the two old jails next door will remain, Gilbert is offering to buy up EVERYTHING. He wants the Fail Jail. He wants the old jails. He wants the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, and he wants Wayne County to toss in some juvenile detention facility nearby. According to the Detroit News, the offer will be presented with his plan for the site, described as a "mixed-use retail, entertainment, residential and office development that would serve as a gateway to downtown from the east."
Yes, the private bathrooms, tablets, and balconies have been nixed. And yes, the jail's prisoner capacity has been reduced to 2,000, negating much of the savings used to justify the new jail in the first place. But you know what they say about getting back up on that horse, so everyone is still intent on building something. According to the Detroit News, the Wayne County Building Authority might spend $150,000 for a consultant to tell them why things are $91M over budget, which seems self-explanatory. Downtown billionaire Dan Gilbert is interested in the property, but he's certainly no Get Out Of Jail Free Card ($100M has already been spent on the project) and negotiations are currently "stalled." So a jail we shall have. Nothing stops Detroit!
· Previous Fail Jail Coverage [Curbed Detroit]
· Wayne Co. aims to salvage over-budget jail [Det News]
As Wayne County's overbudget tab for that new downtown prison gains additional commas, the idea of simply giving up has gained some traction. Turns out, there's already an empty prison over on Mound Road owned by the state. It might—might!—make more sense to stuff the prisoners in there rather than spend $300M to build a new jail in downtown Detroit. Too bad no one had their thinking caps on two years ago, when the state offered to sell Wayne County that prison for a mere $1.5M. Live and learn, right?
Scheduled to open in 2014, Downtown's new jail is failing to meet the expectations you didn't even know you had for a jail. Basic real estate reasoning tells us that a plan featuring a large jail as the eastern welcome mat to Downtown is rather unwise, yet our fearless leaders of Wayne County have increased the ineptitude to intolerable levels. The Detroit News reports that the jail's original plans included fifty-one tablet computers ($2,400 a pop), five private bathrooms for the higher-ups, and a 300-square-foot terrace from which to take in the gorgeous view of Downtown. Now it's a $300M mess.
[Photography by Chris and Michelle Gerard]
Detroit may have a media outlet dubbed 
Dan Gilbert might soon be the new warden at Fail Jail. 
Today, Dan Gilbert's people will make an offer to buy the downtown Fail Jail site, giving Wayne County officials an escape from the over-budget, $120M pile of cement they've created. But there is more. As there's no point in buying the jail if the two old jails next door will remain, Gilbert is offering to buy up EVERYTHING. He wants the Fail Jail. He wants the old jails. He wants the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, and he wants Wayne County to toss in some juvenile detention facility nearby. According to the 
