After nearly two decades of failed efforts to re-energize the massive Kingsbridge Armory and dire warnings that it may never happen, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced last week that the iconic, 575,000-square-foot brick castle in the west Bronx would be turned into the world’s largest ice sports complex.

“Through this redevelopment, the Kingsbridge Armory will now have an interior program befitting its iconic exterior architecture,” Bloomberg said.

When it is fully realized, the complex, known as the Kingsbridge National Ice Center, will house nine full-sized ice rinks for hockey, figure skating and other ice sports and include a 5,000-seat arena for major events and tournaments. The developers are expecting two million visitors a year, which Bloomberg and other officials say will provide a huge boost for the local economy and businesses.

The development group, which is made up of several hockey enthusiasts and investors led by former Wall Street executive Kevin Parker, will invest $275 million in the project, which is scheduled to partially open with five rinks in 2018 and be completed by 2019.

Parker said the Kingsbridge National Center will be the “largest ice sports facility on the planet” that will result in “transforming [the Armory] into a local, regional, national and global destination.” He added that groups from Russia, Sweden, Germany, Canada and throughout the United States have expressed interest in using the facility when it’s completed.

Jobs and Benefits

The project is expected to create more than 800 construction jobs while it’s being built and some 260 permanent jobs that will pay employees a so-called “living wage” of at least $10 an hour plus benefits or $11.50 an hour without benefits.

In addition to jobs, the developers have also agreed to run a free after-school skating and tutoring program for local youth and provide more than 50,000 square feet of community space.

Just four days before Bloomberg’s announcement, the wage guarantees, free youth programming and community space were all included, among other items, in a community benefits agreement signed between the developers and the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance (KARA, see front page story), which is made up of more than 30 community groups, including the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition.

Parker thanked KARA for helping build community support for the project.

“We said all along, if the community didn’t want us here, we wouldn’t come,” Parker said. “Being part of this community and contributing positively to this community is what this project is all about.”

It will also be about making money. The developers will pay $1 a year to lease the Armory until the ice center is up and running. After that, they will pay a fee of 5 percent of its annual revenue, which is expected to be about $1 million at the beginning. There will also be an option to buy the Armory at market rate, which is estimated to be around $20 million.

A Deal Delayed

Bloomberg, who didn’t mention the benefits agreement, held the press conference in the middle of the darkened, frigid Armory drill floor, which is the size of three football fields. The military stopped using the main building in 1993. Since then it’s been used as a place for storage, film production and random events.

Last Tuesday, during the press conference, hundreds of La-Z-Boy-style recliner chairs packed in plastic sat on the drill floor like refugees excluded from the world’s largest Super Bowl party.

It was amid this backdrop that Bloomberg was joined by Parker, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., local Councilman Fernando Cabrera, Community Board 7 Chair Paul Foster and two big-time ice sports stars in hockey, legend Mark Messier and figure-skater Sarah Hughes.

In his opening remarks, Bloomberg framed the announcement as the triumph of hard work over politics and as another symbol of how the “Bronx is building” and no longer “burning” as it was during the borough’s most turbulent years in the 1970s and 1980s.

“We’re going to have an announcement that a lot of people said we would never have,” Bloomberg said at the beginning of the press conference.

He may have been speaking about himself. In late 2009, the City Council, backed by Diaz and KARA, voted to kill a plan that would have turned the Armory into a giant shopping mall, mostly because the developer, The Related Companies, wouldn’t agree to pay employees at the mall a living wage. It marked the first time during his tenure that the Council voted against a Bloomberg-backed development proposal.

The mayor, whose veto of the vote was overridden by the Council, was incredulous, saying he thought the Bronx had blown its best shot at developing the Armory. He said he didn’t see the building being transformed into anything for the “foreseeable future.”

But Bloomberg and Diaz both praised each other for putting the past behind and working to make the ice center a reality at the Amory.

“No, the road wasn’t easy,” Bloomberg said. “No major development project is. But the alternative — not making an effort and allowing this Armory to remain empty and stand as a symbol of the abandonment that has plagued the Bronx — was simply unthinkable.”

Ice Idea Takes Hold

After the mall plan died, Diaz formed a task force to solicit and evaluate possible uses for the Armory. While that effort produced some interesting ideas, it didn’t lead to any feasible proposals.

Soon after the task force went public with its report in the summer of 2011, Parker and his group of investors approached the city, including the mayor’s office, the borough president’s office and Cabrera, with their idea for an ice center. Over the past two years, Parker’s group has spent nearly $200,000 on lobbying efforts in New York, according to city records.

At the same time, Cabrera said he began talking to the Economic Development Corporation about opening up the Armory to another request for proposals (often referred to as an RFP).

In pursuing a solution at the Armory, Bloomberg said Diaz spent so much time working with deputy mayors Robert Steele and Howard Wolfson that they “could have built a shuttle between City Hall and Bronx Borough Hall.”

From the beginning, Parker’s team said it would finance the project without using subsidies and that it would pay its employees a living wage. (The mall project was set to receive millions in tax subsidies before it died.)

After Bloomberg made the Armory’s redevelopment a centerpiece of his State of the City speech last year, the city released the request for proposals in January of 2012.

Although the ice center was always considered the front-runner, another proposal emerged that began to draw interest. Young Woo & Associates, a Manhattan design firm, wanted to turn the Armory into a mixed-use futuristic market, with recreation, entertainment and business incubator space. Young Woo’s project would have also housed a huge climbing wall, a youth basketball program and a National Hip Hop Museum that was supported by the Zulu Nation and several Bronx hip hop legends.

CBA Paves the Way

Up until the week before Bloomberg’s announcement, the EDC was saying it was still in negotiations with two developers looking to take over the Armory: KNIC and Young Woo.

In late August of 2012, Diaz, State Senator Gustavo Rivera, Councilman Oliver Koppell and others came out in support of the ice center proposal. But it was not initially endorsed by Cabrera, who will play a major role in getting it passed in the City Council and was on record saying he wanted to see the developer sign a community benefits agreement.

The Friday before the announcement, the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance announced that it had signed a community benefits agreement with KNIC. Diaz and Parker, however, both said the benefits agreement had nothing to do with the agreement hashed out between the city and KNIC. Still, Cabrera was at the press conference and on board with the project as KARA leaders sat in the front row, beaming.

Diaz said the main difference between the mall project that he opposed in 2009 and the ice center that he now supports is that the ice center won’t directly compete with other Bronx malls, including the one being built in Co-op City, or Fordham Road’s extensive retail corridor.

After Diaz spoke at the press conference, praising the mayor for putting politics aside and getting this deal done, he turned to shake Bloomberg’s hand, then paused, and asked for a hug. The mayor obliged.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.