SCOOP: ICE to pay $32 million for Roxbury, N.J. warehouse conversion

The firm that brokered the agency’s warehouse purchases will renovate its Roxbury property, which a court agreement bars ICE from converting until an environmental review is done.

(Photo: LoopNet)

SK2 LLC, the Tennessee company that helped the Department of Homeland Security buy warehouses for immigrant detention this year, received a $31.8 million order on Thursday to renovate the agency’s warehouse in Roxbury, N.J., into a processing and detention center, according to federal contracting records and a person familiar with the award.

The award adds to a string of federal work for SK2. The company won a sole-source contract of about $6 million to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement acquire warehouses. KPB Services, its joint venture with a company affiliated with the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, received a $29.9 million no-bid contract for due diligence and concept design of detention sites. In September, a second joint venture, SK2 Rudiarius LLC, won a $655 million construction contract for detention-related work at sites from Honolulu to Guantánamo Bay.

The agency’s own warehouse in Roxbury, N.J., remains tied up in court. DHS bought the 470,000-square-foot building in February for $129.3 million. New Jersey and Roxbury Township sued in March, and a May agreement in that case bars the agency from converting the property until it completes an environmental review.

Federal lawyers told the court this summer that DHS planned to sell the warehouse, then reversed course within days. A September filing said the agency still had no timeline for a decision.

The order’s written description places the renovation at an ICE-owned building in San Antonio, where the agency bought a 640,000-square-foot warehouse in February, and does not mention New Jersey. Steve Kelley, SK2’s chief executive, did not respond to a request for comment.

A man arrested in a Sept. 4 raid in nearby Dover told NPR’s Jasmine Garsd last month that agents drove him to the Roxbury warehouse. He said he and others were held in handcuffs in its parking lot for several hours before being moved to an official detention center. DHS declined to tell NPR whether it was holding people at the site, citing the pending litigation, and the New Jersey attorney general’s office said it was looking into the reports.

ICE later acknowledged in an email to Rep. Analilia Mejia (D-N.J.) that agents brought 14 people to the warehouse’s parking lot for “initial processing” on Sept. 4 and Sept. 8, but said none were taken inside the building.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.