Michael Wriston, Founder of Project Salt Box. It is a Nonprofit that Monitors ICE Activities Nationwide. He Has Appeared on Numerous Occasions on Cable Evening News This Year.
Get Out and Vote – Democracy is on the Ballot. Certified MAGA Member Susan Collis is on the Ballot and Should Not Be!
The federal government will pay $35.5 million over 15 years to lease a warehouse outside Newburgh, New York for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to a press release received from Michael Wriston, founder and editor of Project Salt Box, (PSB), a nonprofit that monitors ICE activity nationwide, today.
The award for the contract is to a Houston-based firm, Leverage Enterprises Inc., federal contracting and property records show. The General Services Administration, (GSA), signed the lease on June 24. The deal provides ICE with 42,377 rentable square feet, the most the solicition, 2NY0894, allowed. Ten of the 15 years are firm.
GSA does not usually name tenants in its sensitive law enfordcement lease awards. Its property inventory, though, lists 800 Corporate Blvd. as a “new lease for DHS ICE.”
That link was first made earlier this year, when a file briefly posted to the government’s contracting portal appeared under the name “2NY0894 ICE Newburgh,” on a soliciation that called for a sally port big enough for detainee buses and vans, secured parking and small-arms storage, under Level 111 security standards.
Leverage Enterprises registered as a federal contractor in 2023. Commercial construction is its main line of work by its own filing, which also lists real estate leaing among is registrations. The company lists itself as a minority-and service-disabled veteran-owned small business. Federal records show that Leverage Enterprise has one prior contract for Customs and Border Protection offices in Arizona.
The building is a single-tenant warehouse of about 60,143 square feet, on 10 acres near Stewart International Airport and built in 2001. Newburgh property records list National Realty & Development Corp., as an owner of the Northeast Business Center, the complex that sits at 800 Corporate Blvd. and the company markets the building among is office listings. A representative for National Realty did not respond to a request for comment.
Planning documents for the solicitation estimated the interior buildout at about $343 a square foot, $282.58 above GSA’s standard allowance, and near $12. million across the minimum space sought.
ICE has run into resistance elsewhere in the Hudson Valley. The agency backed off a plan earlier this year to put a detention center for as many as 1,500 people in a former Pep Boys warehouse in Chester, NY., after more than 30,000 people signed a petition against it, telling State Assemblymember Brian Maher, it would not go ahead “at this time”
ICE already maintains a 9,074 square foot office at 15 Governor Drive in Newburgh. That location has housed the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor since 2015. The new lease is more than four times that size.
Project Salt Box is commited to transparency and accountability regarding the Department of Homland Security’s expanding footprint. We welcome information, documents and data from sources with firsthand knowledge of agency contracts and capabilities. To better protect your identity, do not contact us from a work-issued device or network. We seek information of public interest, but we do not want and cannot accept classified information.
For background information on the work of Project Salt Box, please visit posts herein dated June 28, 10, 7, 2 and May 30, 2016.