Cuomo Details How He’d Ditch $16 Billion Borough Jail Project and Rebuild Rikers Instead

"Standing near the Chinatown site of a proposed 16-story new detention center, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday detailed his proposal to scrap a planned shutdown of the Rikers Island jail complex if he is elected mayor.

“My plan is to rebuild Rikers,” said Cuomo at the New York Chinese Community Center on Mott Street. “The island is fine. The island did nothing wrong.”

...

Citing an original planned capacity of 3,300 people for the new borough jails, Cuomo noted that the Rikers jails currently house 7,000 — more than double that number. (The new construction projects are in fact slated to build 4,160 jail beds, in addition to capacity for 363 people detained in hospitals.) 

Instead, he is proposing to repurpose the borough jails already in planning or — in the case of Brooklyn — under construction as affordable housing, part of his plan to approve 80,000 affordable housing units in his first year in office if elected."

Read the full article: https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/10/15/cuomo-rikers-closure-plan-rendering-chinatown/