The current issue
Neighborhood Map
Bay Ridge
  • Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights
Brooklyn Heights
  • Downtown, DUMBO
Carroll Gardens
  • Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Boerum Hill
Fort Greene
  • Clinton Hill, Crown Heights
North Brooklyn
  • Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick
Park Slope
  • Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights
GO Brooklyn
Dining Guide
Where to GO
Events calendar
Classifieds
The Brooklyn Wire
Not Just Nets
Police Blotter
Perspective
Parenting
Politics
Transit
Podcasts
Brooklyn Cyclones
Merchant news
About The Paper
RSS Feeds
CNG Boro Politics

‘House’ fire! Thompson blocks Bloomy again at jail

By Mike McLaughlin
The Brooklyn Paper
Enlarge this image
The Brooklyn Paper / Mike McLaughlin
Comptroller Bill Thompson, a critic of the city’s plan to reopen the Brooklyn House of Detention, spoke to reporters outside the jail on Monday.

Tools

Print this story
digg
del.icio.us

Mayor Bloomberg’s contentious plan to reopen and expand the Brooklyn House of Detention suffered another setback on Monday when city Comptroller Bill Thompson blocked the project, citing a “corruptive” bidding process in awarding a $31.3-million contract.

“[The city] looked like it favored one bidder over many others,” Thompson said about the Bloomberg Administration’s “corruptive process” that led to the selection of the architecture firm Ricci Greene Associates to design a restoration and enlargement for the House of D.

The comptroller, who is running against the mayor this fall for the city’s top job, said he dismissed the deal because:

• The city inadequately explained why the entire project’s price tag jumped from $240 million to $450 million.

• The firm did not meet the city’s experience requirements, even as other bidders that did were excluded.

• Ricci Greene was sued for malpractice by upstate Orange County for problems at a jail there.

The comptroller’s dismissal comes less than two weeks after a state judge ruled the city can fill the existing 759-bed jail at any time — though plans to roughly double the prison’s capacity must undergo environmental review.

Officials from the Department of Design and Construction lashed back at Thompson’s reasoning for canceling the contract, which was originally pegged on rough estimates of the eventual cost to build a second tower for the site that closed in 2005.

“As the comptroller well knows, agencies routinely use budget placeholders until they can bring in design services to get a more accurate estimate,” said Matthew Monahan, an agency.

He added that the bidding process was open to qualified builders, and that the lawsuit against Ricci Greene involved a “minor” water pipe break.

©2009 The Brooklyn Paper

←DUMBO: Brooklyn Bridge historian McCullough denounces Dock St. project
→Give to groups that Bob Guskind supported

Reader Feedback

Enter your comment below

By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:

You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.

First name
Last name
Your neighborhood
Email address
Daytime phone

Your letter must be signed and include all of the information requested above. (Only your name and neighborhood are published with the letter.) Letters should be as brief as possible; while they may discuss any topic of interest to our readers, priority will be given to letters that relate to stories covered by The Brooklyn Paper.

Letters will be edited at the sole discretion of the editor, may be published in whole or part in any media, and upon publication become the property of The Brooklyn Paper. The earlier in the week you send your letter, the better.

Brooklyn Paper Parent
Water Street Restaurant

Links