Rock Ventures LLC, a unit of Dan Gilbert’s business empire, will offer today to buy the unfinished Wayne County Jail at Gratiot and Madison, as well the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, two nearby jails and a juvenile detention facility.
“We are making an offer on the overall site,” Matthew Cullen, president of Rock Ventures, said in an interview. “The clarity around the offer will take a little bit of time working with the county. It will include a financial proposal without great specificity about what the use would be.”
In its answer to the county’s request for proposals, due this afternoon, Rock envisions transforming the jail and criminal justice sites into what it will describe as a mixed-use retail, entertainment, residential and office development that would serve as a gateway to downtown from the east. Competing proposals are possible, but as of close of business Wednesday none had been received by county.
Armed with three preliminary consulting studies expected to accompany its filing, Rock intends to argue that a new jail and the nearby courts should be consolidated at the state-owned Mound Road Correctional Facility for less than it would cost to push through a jail project beset with cost overruns and other shenanigans drawing the scrutiny of federal law enforcement.
“We have to be pragmatic business people and evaluate where we are at the present time and do the right thing,” Cullen said. “We think it should move. We think it’s the right thing for the city of Detroit and the right thing for Wayne County.”
Financially it may be, particularly when the escalating costs of pushing ahead are weighed against the revenue-generating use of a privately financed development that won’t happen at all if the jail project is built out. A criminal justice consolidation at Mound Road would enable the county to book revenue from the sale of the sites, as well as capture incremental tax revenue after the development is completed.
But the politics of County Executive Robert Ficano’s jail boondoogle — now at roughly $120 million and counting — and the necessity to recoup squandered bond proceeds backed by taxpayers are pushing officials into a proverbial corner.
They need a way out, and they want someone with deep pockets, vision and an interest in the area to finance their exit. Gilbert’s massive downtown play and the means to back it up fits the bill, witness his control of the Greektown Casino and his record for making high-impact plays.
But there’s a hitch. The Quicken Loans Inc. mortgage impresario and his real estate pros, led by Cullen and Eric Larson, managing director of Bedrock Real Estate Services LLC, didn’t amass an empire of 30 downtown buildings and counting by overpaying and bailing out failed developers masquerading as politicians.
The working assumption is that the jail site and its half-finished hulk of a building are worth a fraction of the $100-plus million the county has blown on the project amid charges of self-dealing and poor oversight. The Rock proposal argues private redevelopment of the jail site and public consolidation of a criminal justice complex at Mound Road would be a better outcome and urges the county to consider it.
Gilbert is fiercely critical of the decision to build a new county jail on the edges of the city’s symbiotic entertainment, stadium and Greektown districts. The move would be a critical step toward consolidating Gilbert’s plans for his Greektown holdings, a spur to redevelopment efforts along Woodward.
There is little doubt that it’s in his interest to make it happen. Gilbert and his real estate team are asking the right question: Is prime downtown property just a few steps from a world-class opera house, a reviving Woodward and some of the best major league venues in the country the best place in the city for a prison district?
Should a city verging on bankruptcy and a county not far behind ignore opportunities to maximize tax revenue collection? Should their leaders cling to bad decisions complicated by poor management for fear of being publicly lacerated for apparent incompetence? The questions answer themselves.
Like so many other facets of the Ficano administration — executive pension outrages, the Turkia Awada Mullin scandal, ongoing federal investigations, risible financial management — the jail fiasco is an embarrassment in need of a solution that makes sense for more than the political interests of a few.
Gilbert’s Rock and their consultants are offering Ficano and his team a potential way out. They should consider it before they press ahead with a mistake that will linger long after they are gone.
