Will J.L. Hudson’s “White Elephant” Become Wayne County’s New Jail?

Will J.L. Hudson’s “White Elephant” Become Wayne County’s New Jail?
By Nadine Brown

The long, drawn-out issue of a new inmate facility to ease the crowded conditions at the Wayne County Jail – as ordered by a three-judge Wayne County Circuit Court panel – is still up in the air, and rumors are circulating like wildfire.

The panel, Judges Thomas J. Brennan, John D. O'Hair and Victor J. Baum, was given jurisdiction by the court as a result of a suit filed in 1971 by inmates, who charged that overcrowding and other inhumane conditions existed. Sheriff William Lucas was ordered this past January not to admit any more prisoners until the jail population dropped below its 720 capacity. Then, in February, the panel denied county officials' appeal for a delay and intensified pressure on them to build a new jail.

Now, a controversy has surfaced over whether the Wayne County Board of Commissioners will continue to support a plan it approved last year to build a new jail -on land it voted to purchase from the City of Detroit across from the old Traffic Court site – or a subsequent proposal to renovate the old J.L. Hudson's house on Madison and Beaubien.

As a result of a recent series of developments, suspicion is growing in the community that a "deal" may be in the making – or is already underway – to dump the plan to build a new jail and go for the warehouse renovation. One of the rumors going around is that Hudson's officials may be planning to move out of the city due to losses in business, and may consider the warehouse a "white elephant" which they want to unload.

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Hudson's Warehouse: "Let's Make a Deal"

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The suspicions have been intensified further by reports that the estimated cost of the warehouse proposal could be more than double the amount cited by its supporters.

A special task force, appointed by former Board chairman Roscoe Bobo (prior to his leaving that post to serve as the Commissioners' legislative agent in Lansing) was assigned to study the warehouse proposal and bring back a report and recommendations to the full body. However, the task force failed to report on the issue April 1 as scheduled Therefore, the Board's decision as to which course to follow has again been delayed.

But prior to that non-action, the Commissioners voted unanimously at their March 18 meeting to place on the ballot for the May 18 Presidential primary a proposal for a 5-year millage increase to finance a new County jail. The language, however, does not specify whether the additional one-half mill, or 50 cents per $1,000 of assessed property valuation, would be used to build a new jail or renovate the warehouse.

The SUN contacted Will Hardy, executive assistant to the Chairman of the Board, regarding the reason the task force delayed its report. He replied that the group said it did not have the necessary information from both sides as to estimated costs for staffing.

Members of the task force are: Dr. James Paulson, assistant dean of Wayne State University's School of Engineer-

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JAIL

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State University's School of Engineering; Dr. Warren W. Yee, a partner in the architect firm of Harley, Ellington, Pierce, and Yee Associates in Southfield; Al Moore, executive director of the UAW's Community Action Program in Southeast Michigan; Robert Forbes, administrative assistant to the president of Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO; Harry Philo, head of the law firm of Philo, Maki, Cockrel, Robb, and Spearman; Robert McKendrich of the Greater Detroit Chamber of Commerce.

Perry Johnson, Director of the State Department of Corrections, was also asked to participate on the task force; he is represented by Robert Groenleer.

Asked why the task force didn't think of staffing costs earlier – especially in view of the fact that staffing money was discussed at length when Sheriff Lucas presented his request for appropriations for staffing of the temporary barracks at the Detroit House of Correction – Hardy later replied that Lucas had given his estimates verbally, but didn't give a written statement. He said the warehouse group had submitted its estimate in writing.

During a subsequent interview, Frank Wilkerson, Wayne County Jail Administrator, said, "We sent our staffing estimates to the task force March 31. It was hand-carried by a messenger." He added that it was not requested in writing until the previous Thursday. Wilkerson called in Lt. Leon McConnell, who is assigned to that area of the case, and he gave the following figures:

Staffing for a newly built jail would require 281 persons at a cost of almost $6 million a year, while the backers of the warehouse facility call for a staff of 377 persons, which would cost over $8 million annually. McConnell emphasized that “it would cost the taxpayers $2,440,800 more to operate the warehouse annually than it would for a new jail building."

County officials have been discussing and working with three architectural firms, Giffels Associates, Inc., Howard Sims and Associates, and Sidney E. Shorter and Associates, since mid-1974 on plans for building a new jail in downtown Detroit at an initial cost of around $20 million.

In March 1975, a group of Detroit investors – Robert Dice, a Detroit attorney; Aubrey V. McCutcheon, Executive Deputy Superintendent of the Detroit schools, and the Grossman and Company realty firm said it had an option to buy the Hudson's warehouse. Although the group didn't disclose the cost of the potential purchase of the warehouse, they said they could renovate the facility into a 750-inmate capacity all within 18 months at a cost $18 million.

But the Department of Corrections reviewed the warehouse proposal in May of 1975 and criticized it for being too large and lacking proper access to Detroit Recorder's Court, among other things. And after the group revised its proposal, the Wayne County Commissioners turned it down in September '75 and approved appropriations of $1.3 million to develop working drawings on the Giffels plan.

The Grossman group filed a suit in Wayne County Circuit Court to halt that transaction, and earlier this year it hired Robert E. Fitzpatrick, a former Chairman of the Board of Commissioners (during 1971 through 1974), to convince the board that it should reconsider the warehouse proposal.

The investors engaged the services of Gruzen & Partners, a New York based firm of architects and criminal justice planners that reportedly specializes in designing detention and correctional facilities. On March 2, Paul Silver, an architect and project director with the Partners, appeared before the Board of Commissioners' Committee to present the warehouse proposal, a design of the Gruzen firm.

Cited in the report were plans for a tunnel to transport prisoners to and from Recorder's Court (which has drawn strenuous opposition), "all built-in" room furniture for 400 individual inmates, an electronic surveillance unit, full air-conditioning, and a wide range of inmate activities and services.

The renovation plan, according to its proponents, could be purchased for "a fixed price of $20 million, or leased for 25 years at an annual rent of $2,300,328 with option to purchase for $1 at the end of the 25-year term." But this is "subject to the lessee assuming the lessor's obligation to maintain the roof and four outer walls during the last six years of the term."

At the end of the presentation, one commissioner, obviously in support of the plan, immediately moved that the board halt all renovation of Wayne County Hospital's "M" building (which was undergoing renovation to accomodate prisoners being housed temporarily at Dehoco) until April 1, when the task force was to report its recommendations.

The motion was quickly opposed by Commissioners Lee Flowers and Arthur Carter. Flowers pointed out that "We adopted a motion to renovate the "M" building at the same time we Ok'd work on Dehoco." The motion to halt was adjusted to a recommendation to the full board instead. Later, Judge Baum ordered the board to get on with renovation of the "M" building.

That eager caper indicated to several of us who were observers at the session that apparently there had been some behind-the-scenes planning, and the anxious motion-maker blew it.

At a press conference called later by V. Lonnie Peek, Chairman of the Concerned Citizens Council, serious questions about the warehouse plan were raised. Peek was flanked by Susan Watson Peek and Commissioner Carter. They questioned the logic of digging a tunnel underneath Gratiot, down the middle of Beaubien, and underneath Madison to the jail, as the Gruzen plan proposes.

The tunnel, they said, could create engineering problems and add to the cost, and it could pose problems for the Sheriff and Detroit Police in transporting prisoners. They stressed the need to alert the public to what is going on.

Carter challenged the cost cited by the Gruzen group as being far below what such a project in an old building would really amount to. He said while the plan to build a new jail is estimated to cost about $23 million, the renovation plan could amount to about $55 million over the next five years on the proposed basis.

During the earlier interview, Lt. Connell of the Sheriff's Department said, “The main drawback to the use of the warehouse is that it is infested with posts. It has something like 49 large pillars on the six floors. And the building is so heavy that they have to have them for support. Remove the pillars and the building falls."

"That building was designed for a warehouse, not a jail," he said, and adding that the present jail is 50 years old and is run down. "The warehouse is 35 years old, so it doesn't make sense to put a lot of money into renovating that structure."

The writer was one of several persons who spoke at a public hearing called by the Board's General Government Committee March 17 to get a sounding as to whether it could generate support for the one-half mill property tax increase for a new jail.

All but one of the dozen or more speakers said they would favor a tax increase for a newly built jail, but would not go for renovating any old building.

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Nadine Brown is a regular contributor to the Michigan Chronicle.