DETROIT – The Wayne County Commission has voted 12-3 to end the consideration of moving the failed county jail project to a closed state prison on Mound Road near Davison on Detroit's east side.
The county broke ground in September 2011 on a consolidated jail on Gratiot Avenue at Interstate 375, adjacent to the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, but construction was halted in June 2013 when cost overruns of tens of millions of dollars became evident on the planned $300 million project.
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The county's former chief financial officer, Carla Sledge, and its chief assistant corporation counsel, Steven Collins, are charged with misconduct in office, a felony, along with misdemeanor willful neglect of duty. Both are accused of giving false or misleading information about the jail project's cost.
The misdemeanor charge also was filed against Anthony Parlovecchio, a contractor hired to oversee the project. He is accused of not fully informing officials about the project.
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According to the County Commission, all of 2014 to this point had been spent examining the possibility of moving the project off the Gratiot site and relocating it to the Mound Road facility. The county entered into an agreement last December to sell the jail and other county properties to Dan Gilbert's Rock Ventures for $50 million.
However, the County Commission says "subsequent studies showed that moving the project to Mound would cost nearly $260 million more than completing it on the Gratiot site."
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"The numbers never added up," said Commission Chairman Gary Woronchak, who introduced the resolution to remove the Mound Road option, in a news release. "And that was without even considering whether Mound Road was a practical location for the county's criminal justice operations."
The resolution approved by commissioners Thursday morning does not answer the overall question of how and where to complete the project. The possibility remains for a complete renovation of the existing jails, and the county still could finish the project on the Gratiot site where it sits half-finished.
Woronchak said he believes completing the project on Gratiot remains the most practical option.
"We're not at a point where we're trying to decide where to build a jail -- that was decided several years ago, and we have $160 million of taxpayer money invested in that site already," he said. "Any alternative to that would have to make sense financially for the taxpayers we represent."