Major price tag attached if feds want to convert Dublin prison for new use

The shuttered women’s prison complex in the East Bay made infamous for its long-running “rape club” is bereft with mold, asbestos and a litany of other hazards that would cost tens of millions of dollars to fix, according to a new federal environmental assessment released earlier this month.

The scathing appraisal of the FCI Dublin women’s prison - which was closed in 2024 amid a widespread sexual abuse scandal and concerns about its dilapidated infrastructure - marks the first step in the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ bid to transfer the property elsewhere in the federal bureaucracy. Its release on May 1 opened a monthlong comment period for the public to weigh in on the assessment and its bearing on the future of the property.

The report comes as numerous East Bay leaders voice fears the facility could be transformed into a detention center as part of President Donald Trump’s massive immigration crackdown, particularly given the lack of similar facilities elsewhere in Northern California. Earlier this year, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and the Dublin City Council passed resolutions opposing any such re-opening of the facility.

The 2,731-page assessment gave no indication of what might happen to the facility if removed from the prisons bureau’s purview, though a December memo by the Justice Department suggested the property be transferred to the U.S. General Services Administration, which oversees the federal government’s office space. For months, that agency has reportedly been scrambling to provide office space for thousands of newly-hired Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, as well as places to put the migrants they’ve been rounding up in their raids.

The assessment’s release has prompted a renewed concern by immigrant and inmate advocates about future plans for the property. Susan Beaty, a senior attorney with the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, said the assessment highlights how the former prison is “absolutely dilapidated,” and has needs to be completely demolished.

“The property is absolutely uninhabitable and unsafe and hazardous,” Beaty said. “And it’s honestly horrifying the prison, as described in this report, was used to house hundreds of human beings.”

The Rev. Dr. Kelly Miller-Sanchez, the pastor of Resurrection Lutheran Church in Dublin, agreed the former prison needs to be razed.

“We do not want a detention facility in our community," said Miller-Sanchez, suggesting the property represented “prime real estate” that would better be repurposed as a library, recreation center or any number of other uses. “There’s just so many ways that land could be utilized to serve the community, rather than trying to lock up more people."

On Wednesday, Jason Sweeney, an ICE spokesman, said in an email that the agency “does not have plans to use FCI Dublin for immigration detention.” Other messages from the Bay Area News Group to the Bureau of Prisons, the General Services Administration, the Department of Homeland Security were not immediately returned.

Speculation about the property’s future has lingered since the federal prisons bureau announced FCI Dublin’s closure in 2024, amid a torrent of lawsuits by past and current inmates claiming years of systemic abuse at the hands of the prison’s staff. In all, 10 prison staffers at every level of the organization - including a warden and a chaplain - faced sexual abuse and misconduct charges in one of the nation’s largest prison abuse scandals in recent memory. All but one of them were ultimately convicted and sentenced to prison.

When announcing the prison’s closure that year, federal prison officials cited poor staffing levels and the “considerable repairs needed to re-open the facility.” The environmental assessment released this month detailed those concerns even further, including cracks in the foundations of multiple buildings and leaks in numerous roofs that have caused mold to grow. Asbestos and lead-based paint also are present and need to be addressed.

Several sections of pipes in the prison’s sanitary sewer lines show cracks, the report said. And its decades-long history as a military installation, prior to being used as a prison, raises additional concerns of soil contamination, the report added.

The assessment cited a 2024 government review of repair and replacement costs at the facility would run $26 million over three years. A 10-year work plan was quoted at $118 million and a 20-year plan would cost nearly $88 million, the report added.

On Wednesday, Beaty said the costs are just one reason not to reopen the facility.

“People understand that a detention center here in the Bay Area and Alameda County would put people at risk of arrest and detention and terror by ICE," Beaty said. “It's a drain on resources, on infrastructure, it's a huge detriment to the community that surrounds it."

Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.

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This story was originally published May 14, 2026 at 4:28 AM.