Yikers!

City taxpayers pumped $16.7 million into a centralized intake center at Rikers Island that was kept open for just three months before being abandoned early last year, The Post has learned.

The center — a collection of five, tennis-bubble-like buildings that were renovated to handle inmate processing and admissions at one site rather than five — was the brainchild of former Correction Commissioner Dora Schriro.

It opened during former Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s last month in office, in December 2013, but lasted just a few months before Acting Commissioner Mark Cranston pulled the plug around March 2014.

“We spent $16.7 million dollars in city taxpayer funds on something that we used for three months and then stopped using — so obviously that was a problem,” said a source familiar with the site.

“To this point, there have not been any decisions about what to do with that space, so it’s just sitting there.”

When operational, each bubble building was designated to serve a specific function: holding, processing, medical processing and staging for assignment to jail housing. A fifth building served as a warehouse for supplies and equipment.

But former correction officials said that the layout of the site led to significant delays in processing inmates and that costs skyrocketed because workers assigned to the complex at the island’s Western Facility were all getting paid for overtime shifts.

“It was costing an exorbitant amount of money for worse results in processing time, and the decision was to close it, revert back to previous operations and reassess the location for another use,” said Cranston, who now serves as warden in Middlesex County, NJ.

He said he had recommended the abandoned site be converted to a specialty medical clinic, so that podiatrists, dermatologists and other doctors could be shipped in to check numerous inmates, rather than shipping each inmate off-island for medical care.

Officials said that there are no finalized plans for what to do with the $16.7 million structures, but that the Correction Academy and the agency’s intelligence bureau use the space for training.