Mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo told business leaders Wednesday morning that he wants to scrap the city’s plan to replace Rikers Island with neighborhood-based jails and instead build new “state of the art jails” 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 close the troubled jail complex, where a dozen have died so far this year.

Cuomo said that as mayor, he would plan to provide free bus service to Rikers and use the existing borough-based sites for “major housing and commercial developments.”

“It would immediately unleash great potential while avoiding more years of delay and government waste,” he said at the Crain’s mayoral forum, calling the curren

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