Manhattan's New Jail Will Be About 16 Floors Shorter

CHINATOWN, NY — A new lock-up proposed to replace the existing Manhattan Detention Complex will now rise 29 floors, about 16 fewer than a previous proposal, the City Council announced Tuesday.

Manhattan's new jail is slated to rise 295 feet instead of 450 feet under the city's plan to replace Rikers Island with four facilities throughout the boroughs and roughly halve the jail population by 2026, City Council members said just two days before a council vote on the plan.

"We got what we fought for," Lower Manhattan Council Member Margaret Chin told reporters. "This is actually more [than expected], and I was really, really happy that the city really heard from the community, really heard from me, and they were able to do that."

The lock-up — which will replace the Manhattan Detention Complex at 125 White St. in Chinatown — will be about the same height as the criminal court on Centre Street, she said.

"We want to make sure the new facility doesn't tower over everybody else," said Chin. She added in a statement the new height would "no longer be out-of-scale with the neighborhood."

The 155-foot drop is largest reduction among all the proposed jails, with the Manhattan facility now expected to be the same height as Brooklyn's jail.

The height reductions in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx range from 50 to 155 feet in response to neighborhood concerns about the jails' heights.

The new jail will now be about five floors taller than the existing facility, according to public records showing how tall the current complex is. Chin said the current aging facility would still need to be replaced to design a more humane building, echoing what city officials have said to build safer, more "modern, well-designed" facilities.

In Lower Manhattan, Community Board 1 voted against the proposal with a laundry list of conditions in its May resolution, including a height reduction and concerns about the impacts of construction on neighbors, such as an adjacent senior building. Chin said she is still waiting for the city's finalized plans to mitigate impacts to the senior building.

CB1 Chair Anthony Notaro said a height reduction "would be great," but he added that the board has also asked the city "to correct or mitigate ... the impact of such a major development."

A coalition of neighborhood groups opposed to the plan, Boroughs United, said the reduction "means nothing" unless it is formally included in the city's application to build the new jails.

"What's to say the city or next administration, says oops, sorry, we need more beds," said Boroughs United spokesperson and Chinatown resident Nancy Kong, criticizing the city's "lack of transparency."

No New Jails NYC, which staunchly opposes building new jails and calls for closing Rikers Island, said in multiple tweets the height reductions show "desperation" to pass the plan.

"Keep up the pressure," the group said.

Lower heights were made possible through reducing the projected jail population from the current level of about 7,000 to 3,300 by 2026, according to city projections that have continued to drop in the past several months.

State bail reforms, a city-funded supervised release program for detainees, relocation of 250 jail beds into hospital facilities for detainees with serious mental illnesses and adding one more unit per floor in three of the facilities allowed for the new projected jail population, according to a press release.

The overall project is still estimated to cost $8.7 billion, according to Alacia Lauer, a spokesperson for the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, though it remains unclear why the estimate won't change with smaller facilities. A final cost is determined by bids in the design-build process.

"People said these buildings were too large for their neighborhoods, and they listened and fought for changes," City Council Speaker Corey Johnson said in a statement. "I thank the de Blasio administration for working with us to better serve these communities."