Donald Trump’s bonkers scheme to return Alcatraz Island to its inglorious past as one of the nation’s most feared prisons could run taxpayers upward of $2 billion.
The president is apparently so hellbent on the made-for-Hollywood plan that on Thursday Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum took a tour to assess the site, which currently attracts 1.6 million tourists a year.
An Axios report quoted two administration officials outlining the costs of three prospective renovation plans. The most expensive option, costing the full $2 billion, would see the island’s existing structures demolished and replaced with a new “supermax” prison complex.
For reference, a price tag of that amount would be equivalent to more than three decades’ worth of the $60 million the site currently brings in annually as a national park and museum, according to data from the National Park Service.
Alternatives would include building a lower-security prison occupying only a part of the island, for an estimated $1 billion, or outsourcing the entire project to private contractors, which sources say looks less likely at this point in the discussions.
“We’re still in the early stages,” one person familiar with those talks said. “We need a lot more study, a lot more specificity, before the president decides. But $2 billion might just be too much money for him.”
The Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary initially closed in 1963 after the government determined it had proven far too expensive to operate. The age of existing structures on the island meant they required constant maintenance, with its remote location making it costly to regularly ship supplies and personnel on and off the site.
Trump’s plans have therefore drawn widespread derision from critics across the aisle such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose congressional district covers much of San Francisco. “It should concern us all that clearly the only intellectual resources the administration has drawn upon for this foolish notion are decades-old, fictional Hollywood movies,” she said.
“He likes it because it’s tough,” one of the advisers who spoke to Axios suggested.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
