By David Brand

There’s a reason why the hulking jail that looms above the Queens Criminal Courthouse has no role in the plan to close Rikers Island, an official from the mayor’s office said Wednesday.

The place is “horrible.”

“There are pretty horrible conditions,” said Dana Kaplan, the deputy director of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice Justice Initiatives and Close Rikers. “It wouldn’t be approved if we were to seek certification.”

Kaplan met with Queens reporters on Wednesday ahead of a presentation on the city’s borough-based jails proposal. The plan includes demolishing the Queens House of Detention in Kew Gardens in order to 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. Part of the plan includes demapping 82nd Avenue and building the jail and parking lots on top of the street.

It isn’t just that the facility has fallen into disrepair since then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg shut it down as a cost-cutting measure in 2002. Outdated infrastructure in the Queens House of Detention makes it implausible and even inhumane as an alternative to Rikers Island jails, Kaplan said.

“There is no programming space, [there are] long tiers, the housing units, the cell size. It would be impossible to renovate,” she said. “I think demolition is required.”