Eric D. Lawrence

Detroit Free Press

Billionaire developer Dan Gilbert's Rock Ventures has made Wayne County an offer for the downtown site of the current unfinished jail where he wants to build a soccer stadium and entertainment district.

Rock Ventures is offering to build the county a new, "state-of-the-art, consolidated criminal justice center" that includes the construction of new adult and juvenile detention facilities (Divisions 1 and 2) and a new criminal courthouse (replacing the current Frank Murphy Hall of Justice). The proposal also calls for the transfer of the Gratiot Avenue site to Rock Ventures where it wants to build a $1-billion commercial development to host a Major League Soccer team.

Wayne County estimates the completion of the jail on Gratiot Avenue and renovations to the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice would be $300 million, according to a Rock Ventures news release. But Rock Ventures said it is prepared to build the county a new, high-tech criminal justice complex worth an estimated $420 million, in exchange for $300 million from the county, the transfer of the Gratiot Avenue property and a credit to be paid to the company for the savings a new consolidated criminal justice complex would provide.

The county would become the owner of the new justice complex. The company wants an answer by Feb. 20.

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Wayne County administration officials acknowledged receiving the offer, but provided only limited comment.

“Today, the County received a proposal from Rock Ventures as an alternative to completing the jail at Gratiot. We will withhold further comment on the offer until we’ve had the opportunity to review it,” Jim Martinez, spokesman for Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, said in a prepared statement.

Rock Ventures is proposing to build the new criminal justice complex at East Forest Avenue, east of I-75, and approximately 1.5 miles north of the Gratiot Avenue site. An artist's rendering of the proposal shows a parking lot on the site of the Lincoln Hall of Justice, home of the county's juvenile court. The county had been in talks to move the juvenile court, but it was not immediately clear if the Rock Ventures proposal includes room for juvenile court facilities as well.

Reaction to the offer was mixed.

Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon, whose office runs the county jails, said he is not part of the decision-making process.

"As long as this is a good deal for the county I'm OK with it," he said.

Napoleon said moving the jail to East Forest would not pose a problem and he noted that the location had been an early contender for the jail site.

News that an offer had come was a surprise only in the timing. County officials have been expecting a final offer from the Gilbert team for weeks. In fact, the group led by Gilbert and Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores, who have been working to secure an MLS expansion team for Detroit, listed only the Gratiot site on its application last week. MLS wants to add two teams, which it would announce later this year, in 2020 and two more in 2022. Detroit is competing against Charlotte, N.C., Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Nashville, Phoenix, Raleigh/Durham, N.C., Sacramento, St. Louis, San Antonio, San Diego and Tampa/St. Petersburg for one of those slots.

Wayne County Commission Chair Gary Woronchak, D-Dearborn, said he plans to meet with Evans about the proposal on Tuesday morning. He said the administration would need to weigh the offer on its merits before the county commission would meet to discuss it.

Woronchak has previously said he assumed the county would finish the Gratiot jail.

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"At this point it's just a proposal. I think a key point right now is I don’t want to drag this out very long. We're going to identify pretty quickly whether this proposal has any promise or not because we really can't wait any longer on moving forward with the jail," Woronchak said.

He noted that the "fine print is going to mean a lot."

Commissioner Raymond Basham, D-Taylor, downplayed the possibility that the county would accept the offer, saying the "train has left the station" and comparing it to the unlikely event of a Lions appearance in the Super Bowl.

"The taxpayers have spent a tremendous amount of money on the failed jail project," he said. "There is no good option other than to continue to move forward and get this thing done."

Basham noted that for the offer to be attractive "it would have to be an out-of-this-world deal."

Mayor Mike Duggan has in the past voiced support for bringing major league soccer to downtown. But on Monday his spokesman John Roach said the mayor would not comment on Rock Venture’s offer, saying that it’s a decision that will be made by Evans and the Wayne County Commission, and Duggan will leave it to their judgment.

Evans, who has consistently signaled that completing the jail at Gratiot would be the most cost-effective way to get a jail completed, has previously said he would have to consider an offer if it included new jail and court facilities for $300 million. However, the possibility that the county could be forced to repay millions of dollars in federal bond subsidies if the jail is built elsewhere raises the bar. Evans had given a deadline of this coming Friday for consideration of any offers on the jail site. After that, the county was prepared to begin moving forward with issuing a request for proposals targeted at the only company -- Walsh Construction of Chicago -- to express interest in finishing the jail at the Gratiot site.

Ground was broken for the proposed jail, near I-375, under the leadership of then-Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano in September 2011. He was also in office at the time work stopped in June 2013.

The county spent an estimated $151 million in construction-related costs at the Gratiot site and has about $49 million remaining from what it originally borrowed. Officials had previously said they expected to borrow an additional $200 million.

Gilbert expressed interest in the jail site soon after construction was halted on the complex after cost projections put the cost at about $90 million over budget. Since it's been idle, the unfinished site has cost the county taxpayers about $1.2 million a month.

Gilbert and others, including Duggan, have pushed for the downtown site to be used for entertainment purposes, saying it is one of the gateways to downtown and should be a showcase for visitors.

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Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @_ericdlawrence. Staff writer John Gallagher contributed to this report.