Preliminary Plans Shown for Chinatown Jail, New Pedestrian Plaza

Preliminary renderings of the jail building being planned for the site of the former Manhattan Detention Complex in Chinatown. Left: The view looking northeast from Collect Pond Park. Right: The building as seen from White Street looking east. NYC DDC

Architects late last month presented their revised designs for the controversial jail building slated for Chinatown. In the second of three Community Design Workshops on the plans (to be followed by a final design review for the public), representatives from the city and the architecture firm HOK showed refined preliminary renderings of the 295-foot-high facility and the pedestrian plaza that will run through the structure at White Street, between Centre and Baxter. 

Preliminary designs for the building’s interior, including the lobby and cells, and treatment and recreation areas, also were shown. 

Construction is expected to begin early next year and be completed in 2032. Concerns were raised at the meeting over the impact of that work on Chung Pak, the neighboring senior residence and health clinic that suffered cracks and buckling [1] during demolition of the previous jail building last year. At a yet-to-be-determined time, “we will have the builders, the actual construction team, come out and talk to you about their plans and methods for building this facility and how they’re going to take care to minimize the impacts to Chung Pak as much as possible,” said Lauren Micir from AECOM, consultants to the city on the project.

The $3.2 billion building, now five years behind schedule and $1.5 billion over budget, replaces the two Manhattan Detention Complex buildings that stood at 124 and 125 White Street and is part of the city’s borough-based jail plan for closing Rikers Island.

Earlier this year, jail opponents proposed [2] relocating the facility from Chinatown to the nearby Federal Metropolitan Correction Center (MCC) at Park Row near Foley Square, closed since 2021. Under their plan, supported by Community Board 1, housing would be built on what now is the 2-acre city-owned jail site. At the meeting, Jan Lee, who has long led the opposition to the jail, asked Micir if  “it is your position that the borough-based jails must move forward.”

“If we receive different direction from City Hall, we will address that when that comes. But at this moment in time, we are moving forward with the borough-based jails program as is, and we’re not expecting that to change.”

Below are a selection of renderings shown at the Oct. 29 meeting. The entire presentation and video of the meeting can be viewed here [3]. All images: NYC Department of Design and Construction.

A 50-foot-wide pedestrian plaza would extend between Centre and Baxter Streets, about half of it uncovered. Retail or community spaces are proposed at the pedestrian level. The preliminary design calls for trees and a variety of seating and plantings, including raised planting beds. The designers said they see the plaza as a connection between Columbus Park to the east and Collect Pond Park to the west. “We're really working our best to transform White Street into a living arcade, kind of like a people's arcade where we're providing abundant planting, fixtures for lighting, clear path widths and different and diverse seating types,” said Autumn Visconti, a landscape architect with HOK.

Top: Along Baxter Street, the designers chose an “undulating” and “warmer” colored material for the facade. Above: The view from Collect Pond Park looking north along Centre Street. Above the first floors (1), a granite-and-limestone facade and vertical elements are intended to fit in with other buildings in the Civic Center while the lower floors (2), the designers said, are inspired by the neighborhood.