The New York City Borough Based Jails program is a four site plan to replace Rikers Island with smaller jails in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and Manhattan, and its projected cost has climbed from about $8.7 billion at approval to as much as $16 billion, as reported by Straight Arrow News.

New York City Borough Based Jails Program Advances as the Rikers Deadline Slips

All four design build contracts are now awarded, with the Brooklyn jail topped out and due first in 2029 and the Manhattan facility in Chinatown last in 2032, well past the mandated 2027 Rikers closure. The public rebuild contrasts with private, ready to run sites like the Big Horn ICE detention facility in Colorado.

Project Overview

• Project Name: New York City Borough Based Jails program
• Location: Four sites in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and Manhattan (Chinatown)
• Project Value: About $8.7 billion at approval, now projected between roughly $13.7 billion, per City Hall, and $16 billion
• Client and Owner: City of New York, managed by the Department of Design and Construction
• Program Manager: AECOM and Hill International
• Total Capacity: 4,160 beds, about 1,040 per facility
• Delivery Method: Design build
• Construction Progress: Brooklyn topped out in April 2026, with the Bronx, Queens and Manhattan sites in design and early construction
• Expected Completion: Brooklyn in 2029, the Bronx and Queens in 2031, and Manhattan in 2032
• Strategic Purpose: Replace Rikers Island with smaller facilities the city describes as more humane

Project Team

• Client and Manager: NYC Department of Design and Construction
• Program Manager: AECOM and Hill International
• Brooklyn Design Builder: Tutor Perini and HOK
• Queens Design Builder: Leon D. DeMattis, with STV and Michael Graves Architecture, with demolition by Hunter Construction Group
• Bronx Design Builder: Transformative Reform Group, led by SLSCO and Sciame
• Manhattan Design Builder: Tutor Perini, HOK and O&G Industries
• Oversight: NYC Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice and the Department of Correction

Reported 14th July 2021: Work has started on new jail facilities in Manhattan. Last week, construction activities began in earnest on the parking garage and community space alongside a new jail in Kew Gardens, Queens. This is a major $8.3 billion dollar project focused on constructing four “new, smaller, and more humane” new jail facilities in Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens which will be a major upgrade of the jails on Rikers Island which are violence ridden.

The site for the new Queen’s jail is located at the west side of an existing parking lot at Union Turnpike between 126th Street and 132nd Street. The east side of the parking lot will remain open during construction and ensure the provision of 140 parking spots to the community until the completion of the construction in early-2023, while the adjacent Queens Detention Complex will be demolished during the garage construction.

This will make room for a new 1,258,000 square foot jail with a subterranean parking garage for staff and a 676-space parking lot for members of the public. The Queens jail will be built to span across the east side of the parking lot and the site of the former Queens Detention Complex.

According to Dana Kaplan, the deputy director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice Justice Initiatives and Close Rikers, the Queens Detention Complex has to be demolished in order to make room for the new jail facility, which will be designed for an 886 bed space capacity, a maximum height of 195 feet and will also house female detainees in a separate facility within the jail.

The entire Borough-Based Jails programme is being managed by the NYC Department of Design and Construction (DDC) citywide and Jamie Torres-Springer who is the Commissioner of NYC Department of Design and Construction said, “This project is part of a once-in-many-generations opportunity to build a smaller and more humane justice system that includes four facilities grounded in dignity and respect, offering better connections to and space for families, attorneys, courts, medical and mental health care, education, therapeutic programming and service providers.” He also stated, “This is a great milestone in the Borough-Based Jails program, and we continue to seek and evaluate candidates for the design-build teams that will create the Program’s other facilities.”