With the city facing major delays and ballooning costs to its plan to close Rikers Island, former Governor Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday, if elected mayor, he would build new “state-of-the-art” jails on the island in lieu of the four borough-based jails currently being built.

Cuomo was defeated in the Democratic primary earlier this year by Queens Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani and is now running an independent bid for mayor.

On Wednesday, during a Crain’s New York Business mayoral forum, he said he would abandon the city’s legally-mandated plan to close Rikers by 2027 and replace it with new jails in Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan and The Bronx.

Instead, the former governor said he would pursue a “phased rebuild” of the current jail complex, where over 100 people have died in the past decade

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