Wayne County's massive new criminal justice center opened to the public Tuesday, marking "a new era" for the state's most populous county and ending more than a decade of delays that forced detainees and workers to cope with often overcrowded, dangerous conditions, officials said.
The center, located at 5301 Russell Street between East Warren Avenue and East Ferry Street just off the I-75 Service Drive, centralizes Wayne County's criminal justice operations in one complex with a new jail and juvenile detention center with room for 2,500 inmates, along with 26 courtrooms. It sits on more than 11 acres and spans more than one million square feet across seven buildings.
"This is a sigh of relief for me. It's a great day," said Wayne County Executive Warren Evans on Tuesday morning as he was surrounded by a host of county officials in the complex.
By 10 a.m., the complex was already bustling on the first day with employees, lawyers, inmates and others.
"After many, many years — at least 10 that I've been here — we finally come to a culmination of getting a facility built that ought to satisfy the needs of both adult detention, juvenile detention, the courts and the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office," Evans said. "And the early feedback I've gotten from all of them is they like the design."
The path to opening the complex has taken 13 years, at least a half-billion dollars and an abandoned first go at the project.
The county halted construction in 2013 of a partially built jail, started in 2011, because the project's cost had ballooned $90 million over budget.
But moving thousands of detainees into the massive complex wasn't without challenges.
Antonio Lockett was at the center Tuesday morning while his granddaughter collected her personal belongings from the jail. He waited from 9 a.m. Friday until the end of the day to pick her up once she made bail, but the transition to the new building meant he couldn’t get her until after midnight.
Lockett said he felt like the communication about what he needed to do to pick up his granddaughter was all right overall, but the challenges of moving detainees to new facilities and getting the new complex's technology systems up and running delayed things by several hours.
“I sat in the car for six hours,” he said. “But I understand they’re moving from downtown.”
He said toward the end of the day Friday, the Wayne County Sheriff's Office took down his name and contact information so they could call him when he could pick his granddaughter up instead of having to continue waiting at the center.
The new criminal justice complex replaces antiquated facilities where some jail cells were nearly 100 years old. Officials say it should make navigating between court and jail facilities easier for friends and family of detainees. County officials expect 1,000 visitors to the complex each day.
Juvenile detention facility
County officials contend the new adult and juvenile detention facilities can help alleviate the major challenges that sometimes caused dangerous conditions for detainees and workers. In 2022, the county left its juvenile detention center downtown due to overcrowding and understaffing. It was operating out of a vacant former adult jail in Hamtramck before the new complex opened.
In March 2023, the alleged assault of a 12-year-old boy in the Hamtramck facilityresulted in a state intervention. County Executive Evans declared a state of emergency amid what he called "untenable" conditions and issues with overcrowding, assaults and alack of necessities for the detainees.
The design of the new juvenile justice center — which includes a gym, a multi-purpose space, a workout facility, a library, and arts and crafts program — should improve the ability of detention center employees to monitor detainees, officials said. One example, is new facility reduces the amount of detainees an employee has to keep watch on in various situations, officials said.
"So, you don't have to have 16 kids, for example, all together with a care worker. You can have eight," Evans said.
Still, Evans acknowledged the threat of overcrowding remains in the juvenile detention facility. And that's due to a backlog of detainees headed for state facilities.
"I probably have 40 or 50 kids here now who should not be here," Evans said. "But having said that, we're not overcrowded currently. We're going to keep working on making the state do what it needs to do to take kids."
2018 deal
The county's new criminal justice complex stems from a 2018 deal with Bedrock, the developer owned by billionaire Dan Gilbert. Bedrock oversaw construction of the new center in exchange for getting ownership of the downtown buildings vacated by Wayne County: The Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, adjacent jail facilities near Greektown and a former juvenile detention center.
The agreement states the county was to spend a total of $401.3 million on the project, with Rock Ventures covering the remaining construction cost overrun, according to documents provided to The News.
The latest estimated cost to taxpayers, as of Dec. 31, is just over $500 million, nearly $100 million more than the original estimate, according to documents obtained by The News.
The costs to the county increased due to a range of ancillary costs. That includes the buildout of a $34 million DTE central utility plant, about $20 million for a host of services such as consultants and attorneys, and about two dozen "change orders" to the facility, as well as the decision to buy a parking lot from Bedrock for $27 million.
Still, Evans and other officials contend the 2018 saved taxpayers from the millions due to the delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and rising construction costs. County officials say they will release the final taxpayer costs of the facility soon.
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