Bridgeport (AP) - A plan to build a juvenile detention center for troubled girls in Bridgeport has prompted opponents to set up a group to fight the project.

More than 50 people attended an announcement Wednesday about the group's formation, which came after Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell said Tuesday that the state would move ahead with the $15 million project.

The 36,000-square-foot center would be built in a residential area of Bridgeport if the State Bond Commission, which Rell chairs, approves the allocation at its meeting Jan. 8.

It is intended for girls who've been determined by juvenile courts to be delinquent. Such girls typically have been abused and neglected and need treatment for emotional and sometimes substance abuse issues, but have walked away from other programs.

Dozens of Bridgeport residents, along with Mayor Bill Finch and state Rep. Christopher Caruso, say Rell's administration settled on the site in the densely residential area without regard for public input or a thorough review of other potential sites.

Their new group, the Derail the Jail Committee, plans to protest the plan at the bonding group's Jan. 8 meeting at the state Capitol.

"That's my big objection, them not letting us know years ago," said Sally Litzie, who lives on the street where the center would be built. "It was a done deal by the time we found out."

The new juvenile detention center would house girls 18 years old and younger, and would have 16 secure beds and eight beds for girls making the transition into community residential facilities. Rell says the facility has been badly needed since Long Lane School in Middletown closed in February 2003.

"This gender-specific program offers them a chance to heal and grow up to live productive lives," Rell said in a written statement Tuesday. "The facility is for certain girls at certain crisis points in their lives and removes the high risk of them abandoning help and hope."

However, Finch said more appropriate spots in and outside of Bridgeport were offered and discussed, but that "it seems that the state has its mind made up about this site."

"I am still unhappy about that they are proceeding with the plans to build this detention facility at this location ... I am not convinced that it should be built in this densely populated neighborhood when other sites, both in the city of Bridgeport and in other towns, are available for consideration," Finch said Wednesday.