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Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert issued a public rebuke of Wayne County, which is considering a plan to revive the stalled project to build a new county jail downtown
Construction on the jail was halted as a result of big cost overruns. Gilbert wants to develop the site and put up housing, entertainment, and commercial stores. He thinks the jail should go elsewhere in a less central location.
On Twitter, Gilbert wrote on Thursday:
Detroiters, time to awake & ensure right decisions get made on BIG things.Must learn from past.Its a new day.Read this.
Gilbert then posted his remarks on his blog:
The prospect of building a brand new 400 million dollar jail as the ‘welcoming’ structure at the gateway to downtown just off the busiest freeway exit into our urban core at the very same time Detroit’s center is undergoing an unprecedented positive transformation should outrage every single citizen, business and government official of our great city. At the exact moment we finally have the momentum and scale to overcome decades of decline as well as the increasingly inaccurate image and perception of Detroit being a crime-ridden decaying city, it is unfathomable there is even a thought of continuing on with a project that would put a massive county jail at the foot of the entry to downtown.
This critical land must be developed into uses that are consistent with a city that is on the rise and creating the environment to attract brain-economy companies and the kind of high-wage jobs that these businesses produce as well as residential and commercial projects that accompany this kind of growth.
Detroiters deserve better than local leaders moving forward with a short-sighted reckless plan because it may be viewed as an easier path at this point in time. Let me not mince words: Building this jail at this crucial location would be nothing short of an unmitigated disaster that will echo with negative implications for downtown and the city for decades to come. There are several well-thought out alternatives that are light years better for Detroit and Wayne County that over the long run will also be economically favorable as well.
It’s a new day in Detroit and it is time we start learning from some of the senseless and illogical bad decisions of the past by not repeating them. It is clear that locating a major brand new jail at the foot of the busiest gateway to downtown Detroit would rank among this region’s worst decisions of all-time.
All of us: The county, city, state, business community and citizens must come together and do much better than implementing a long-term abhorrent plan for the gateway to downtown Detroit.
We first saw this story in the Detroit Free Press.
