Detroit: $1 million US Customs center only being used to store equipment for politically connected catering firm

Detroit River last month

A top-of-the line $1 millions customs facility on the Detroit River sits unused.

From the Detroit News:

Two years after completion, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have never used the 4,000 square feet of offices, holding cells and labs built for the agency inside the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority Public Dock and Terminal at Atwater and Bates.

The facility includes a floor designed so that Customs could process cruise ship passengers. The agency says the facility doesn't meet standards; port authority officials say they can't afford $170,000 computer and camera upgrades to make it suitable.

So the waterfront offices, next to the Renaissance Center, are crammed with chairs, linens, tables and signs owned by a catering company that hosts weddings and corporate events on the second floor of the building.

And what about those cruise ships?

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One cruise ship has stopped once in Detroit in the past two years, though, and the terminal is used mostly by Continental Services and Catering, a Troy-based company with deep ties to the Democratic Party.

The events held at the facility aren't church-basement style budget affairs. Catered wedding receptions start at $18,500 at this taxpayer paid-for building. As you will see below--the customs cash sinkhole is only the tip of the cruise ship iceberg.

Related post:

$22 million in taxpayer funds flushed away on Detroit cruise ship lure