SOCIAL CIRCLE, Ga. — Plans for a massive detention center in a small Georgia town have been scrapped.
The Department of Homeland Security spent $128 million on a warehouse earlier this year, but is backing away after pushback from the community.
The detention facility would have been able to house 10,000 people, which is more than double the size of the Social Circle’s approximately 5,000 residents.
[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]
Channel 2’s Michael Doudna spoke with Social Circle city leaders on Friday who say the numbers just never worked.
"I mean, it’s not something that any city that I know of has ever had to deal with," City Manager Eric Taylor said. “At the end of the day, DHS apparently came to the same conclusion that, based on what we’ve been trying to tell them, Social Circle was not the right place for this kind of facility.”
In a statement, DHS says they are “moving swiftly to utilize existing detention space with our state and county partners.”
Not turning the warehouse into a detention facility means the $128 million building is sitting empty.
“That’s a lot of money to just not be using it, so I wonder what they’re going to do with it now,” Social Circle resident Mariah McGuire.
TRENDING STORIES:
- SWAT surrounds metro Atlanta Dunkin’
- 2 dead after massive tree falls on moving pickup truck in east Georgia
- Constant smell of marijuana leads to takedown of Chinese nationals running Georgia drug ring
Taylor says he has heard rumors that the facility could be offered to another federal agency or sold again. He hopes that whatever happens next will be a better use of taxpayer money.
“They shouldn’t have spent $129 million for that property, and if they had had that conversation with us from the beginning, maybe they wouldn’t have spent that $129 million, maybe it would have gone to some other better use,” Taylor said.
DHS purchased another warehouse in Oakwood for a similar purpose.
The Oakwood city manager told Doudna that city leaders have heard rumors that the site has been closed, but they have not received confirmation.
[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]