Mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo told business leaders Wednesday he wants to scrap the city’s plan to replace Rikers Island with neighborhood-based jails and instead build new “state of the art” penitentiaries on the site of the current complex.
Cuomo’s stance runs contrary to a law mandating the city close Rikers by 2027 and marks a major departure from the de Blasio-era plan to shutter the troubled jail complex, where a dozen have died so far this year and where complaints about subpar conditions have persisted for decades.
Cuomo said he would as mayor seek to provide free bus service to Rikers and use the sites earmarked for borough-based jails to facilitate “major housing and commercial developments.”
“It would immediately unleash great potential while avoiding more years of delay and government waste,” he said at a mayoral candidate forum in Manhattan hosted by business news outlet Crain’s, calling the current plan a “debacle.”
The 2027 deadline to close the complex is widely acknowledged as impossible to meet, as construction of the new jails has stalled and estimated costs to complete them have risen. The borough-based jails have also faced neighborhood pushback for years from residents.
However, to move forward with his proposal to keep jails at Rikers, Cuomo would face many barriers.
The City Council would need to undo its own 2019 law that first set in motion the closure plan. Cuomo, who’s running as an independent in November’s mayoral election, argued at the forum that he thinks he can win Council members over.
“Dealing with the state Legislature is dealing with 240 people, New York City Council is 50 people,” said Cuomo, who resigned as governor in 2021 amid sexual and professional misconduct accusations he now denies. The Council actually has 51 members.
Cuomo’s proposal could also cost the city more. Rebuilding the current run-down jails at Rikers would take longer and cost 8% to 15% more than building the borough-based jails, per a March report from the Independent Rikers Commission.
Housing inmates at Rikers while simultaneously rebuilding it would bring additional logistical challenges.
The city has also inked or committed to contracts totaling more than $15 billion for the borough jails.
“This isn’t a plan; it’s a political scam with no basis in facts or reality,” Mandela Jones, a spokesman for City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Queens), said. “It would cost the city billions of dollars more and make our city less safe for all New Yorkers.”
Cuomo’s camp cited 2020 numbers by conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute that found ditching the borough-based plan would save the city hundreds of millions of dollars because of the challenges of building in dense urban areas.
“We can and must do both things at once: Close Rikers as we know it, and rebuild it the right way. We own the land and we can phase construction safely while keeping operations running,” Cuomo said, comparing his proposal with the remodeled LaGuardia Airport.
“… Instead of building four massive jails in the middle of residential blocks, we can partner with local communities to reimagine those sites for affordable housing, mixed-use development and neighborhood renewal.”
Mayor Adams, who dropped his reelection bid last month, had previously floated a similar plan, directing staffers to look into abandoning the borough-based jails and building affordable housing and mental health facilities at the sites instead.
Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, who’s polling as the favorite to win November’s election against Cuomo, said he’s against any plan that would keep Rikers a jail complex.
“For Andrew Cuomo to look at something so broken, to look at something so morally bankrupt, and to say it’s time to keep it open is indicative of the kind of politics that New Yorkers are so exhausted by,” Mamdani told the Daily News later in the day as he rode the M57 bus through Manhattan.
“For Andrew Cuomo to use the language of affordable housing as the justification for why he would flout the law of New York City is rich coming from a guy who had to ask ChatGPT to write his own housing plan, who had more than a decade to lead the State of New York and instead watched as housing costs skyrocketed by more than 50%.”
Mamdani supports the original plan to close Rikers and replace it with borough-based jails. Asked to explain how he will ensure that the jails are actually built and that construction will be sped up after years of delays, he said he’ll prioritize procurement “reform,” though he didn’t elaborate on how exactly he’ll do that.
Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa slammed Cuomo’s plan as a grab for conservative voters. Sliwa opposes the current plan to close Rikers, instead advocating for the current complex to be improved upon.
“New Yorkers are watching a Cuomo that is so desperate for personal redemption that he will say whatever is convenient,” Sliwa said in response to the ex-governor’s plan.
Mamdani and Sliwa both took the stage before Cuomo at the Crain’s forum, held at the New York Athletic Club on Central Park South.
The event was attended by New York business leaders, who have been wary of Mamdani’s plan to raise taxes on millionaires and corporations to fund his affordability agenda.
“I know that when many in the business community envisioned their dream candidate for mayor, it may not have been me on the stage,” Mamdani, a democratic socialist, told the well-heeled crowd to some laughter.
Mamdani also promised to base his mayoral hiring decisions on competence, not ideology, and said he wouldn’t rule out letting former Adams officials join his potential administration.
“I will consider everyone on the basis of the work that they do, not on the basis of who appointed them,” Mamdani said.
Originally Published: October 8, 2025 at 12:37 PM EDT
