WAYNE COUNTY, Mich. – On the surface, Dan Gilbert's offer to build Wayne County a new jail facility is a Godfather type of offer -- one the county can't refuse.
But the devil is usually in the details with deals like this one, and Wayne County Executive Warren Evans said it might take months to sort through all the details.
The county has $150 million in the ground at the Gratiot Avenue jail site. Financial fortunes have improved to the point where they have another $300 million to continue building on the land. But is Rock Ventures' offer good enough to change those plans?
"We're at a critical point in Wayne County's history," Evans said.
A soccer stadium or a jail? Evans agreed with Gilbert that it's a 50-year decision that can't be made lightly. So he's going to wait and see if he can work out a deal.
"I personally have doubts that $420 million will be enough to build what we need, and I'm not talking about cost overruns, I'm talking about the amount of money we need to build the facilities that meet our needs," Evans said.
The county has a contractor on the line to build the jail, and it can't wait forever. The county is promising Walsh Construction $500,000 to keep the construction process going while the county vets the deal.
"Make no mistake, this is not an act of philanthropy," Evans said.
Wayne County Commission Chairman Gary Woronchak shares Evans' pessimism about the deal, saying there's a real problem outside everyone's control in Wayne County. The original bonds to build the jail on Gratiot Avenue are federal recovery act bonds -- $20 million worth -- and the county doesn't know if the feds will take kindly to knocking down what has already been started for a soccer stadium on their dime.
"We'll have to pay back certain interest concessions that were granted because it could be $50 million or many millions of dollars that the county would be on the hook for, which probably would scuttle the whole deal," Woronchak said.
The $50 million in penalties could be tacked onto the back end of the deal and put it out of reach. Nobody knows when that will come down, but Evans said he can't wait forever. A decision could be made sometime in May.
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