Kevin Parker did not set out to create the world’s largest ice sports complex inside the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx. Like any parent, the former Wall Street executive says he just wanted to solve a problem for his kids.

“The whole impetus was my kids, playing hockey in New York City, and experiencing first hand what it’s like trying to play ice sports here,” he says. “It’s a nightmare.”

There are only seven full-sized ice rinks in the five boroughs and they are so heavily used that it’s almost impossible to find consistent ice time, Parker says. His two sons, now 12 and 10 years old, have traveled to Westchester, New Jersey and Connecticut to find ice time.

“There is a seriously acute lack of ice,” he says.

But why?

Parker began asking around in search of an answer and stumbled onto an historic project that not only solved his kids’ problem, but also solved the conundrum of what to do with the long-suffering, long-vacant Kingsbridge Armory.

Debunking a Myth

Back in 2010, when Parker first started talking to people about why there aren’t more ice rinks in the city, he says the response was usually, “you can’t make any money in ice sports.”

That didn’t make any sense to Parker, who’s spent his career brokering mega deals at some of the world’s largest banks. “It wasn’t like starting Google or something,” he says. “I took it as a direct challenge.”

Parker says he hired “a kid” to figure out the financial model and, after seeing the numbers, he quickly realized that it could work, especially in an ice-starved place like New York City.

The next question was location. Where could you build a couple of rinks and make them accessible?

Fortunately, Parker knew somebody with extensive knowledge of New York real estate who also happened to be a hockey fanatic.

Jonathan Richter, a burly, square-headed man who looks like he could hold his own on the ice or as a linebacker on the gridiron, grew up in Canada playing hockey and rooting for his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs.

Years ago, he worked for Parker, a huge New York Rangers fan who grew up far from an ice rink in New Jersey, at Deutsche Bank doing real estate deals. Parker says Richter’s been involved in “$10 billion” in New York City real estate deals.

In other words, he may be Canadian, but he knows the Big Apple. Or, as Parker puts it: “Real estate expertise joined the band.”

Richter not only knew real estate, he knew how to work with the city, having done some pro bono work for the Economic Development Corporation, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The EDC, a quasi-governmental organization that is controlled by the mayor’s office, manages big public land projects, including the Kingsbridge Armory.

“Through Jonathan,” Parker says. “I thought something could really happen.”

Discovering the Armory

Richter set up a meeting with EDC president Seth Pinsky to discuss possible locations for a couple of ice rinks, maybe “two to four pads,” in Parker and Richter’s hockey lingo. In the midst of their conversation, Pinsky said, according to Parker: “You know we’ve got this property in the Bronx. Take a look at it, see what you think.”

The next thing they knew, they were on the 4 train, heading up the west side of the Bronx. They stepped off at the Kingsbridge Road stop and saw, looming over everything, the largest Armory in the world. And it was empty.

“Oh my god,” Parker remembers thinking. “This is it.”

Parker and Richter, who knew a little about the Armory’s history, were in awe. They saw something bigger than just a few pads of ice.

“We were blown away,” Parker says. “The outside is monstrous and incredibly impressive. We walked on the drill hall floor and saw there were no columns. The whole vision of what this place could become began to take shape.”

They immediately called some architects and engineers to find out what was possible inside such a monstrous structure. That’s when the magnitude of the project — creating the world’s largest ice facility in the world — became a real and distinct possibility.

In their minds, there was only one thing standing in their way: community opposition.

“They did their homework before coming into this,” said Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter, who would eventually sit across the table from Parker and his team of Wall Street power brokers and help negotiate the city’s toughest and most expansive community benefits agreement.

A Win-Win

Parker and Richter’s team looked at why the last re-development project failed. It was a mega mall by The Related Companies, one of the city’s major development firms. They wanted to put a cookie cutter mall, similar to the one they built at the Terminal Market, now Gateway Center, inside the iconic Armory.

The community, led by Pilgrim-Hunter and the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance (KARA), wasn’t specifically against a mall, but wanted it to produce good-paying, living wage jobs ($10 an hour plus benefits and $11.50 an hour without benefits) and a strong community benefits agreement.

Local elected officials, led by Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., were on board with KARA and helped kill the plan in the City Council when Related refused to guarantee living wage jobs.

That’s why, from the beginning, Parker’s plan, which they called the Kingsbridge National Ice Center (often referred to as “Nick” or “K-Nick”), included guaranteed living wage jobs for all of its permanent employees, plus several thousand square-feet of community space as well as a free after-school program for kids.

The only thing missing, Parker says, was “a true community buy-in.” That took some work.

They hired a lobbying firm, James F. Capalino & Associates, and paid them nearly $200,000 to help them deal with Diaz, other elected officials and KARA. They went to Philadelphia to learn the ins and outs of Philadelphia Flyers owner Ed Snider’s successful and free after-school ice sports program for urban youth. And then they started talking to people.

Diaz, Parker says, was skeptical at first, but then, once he heard the pitch, was on board. In August of 2012, several months before the winning bid was announced this spring, Diaz threw his support behind the ice center.

KARA was a tougher cookie to crack, but they had at least one sympathetic ear in Pilgrim-Hunter who actually grew up in Canada and was exposed to the allure and positive impact of ice sports. Still, they wanted a substantial community benefits package to ensure that Parker’s team would do what it said it would do and then some.

Parker talks about Pilgrim-Hunter and her other lead negotiators, Reverend Que English and Alice McIntosh, like a proud parent.

“They stood up for what they believed in was right,” Parker says. “Fortunately, what they believed in, was what we believed. We disagreed about very little.”

Still, the devil is in the details and they fought over those details fiercely.

“It was maddening and frustrating and many a beer was had trying to calm down every team member on this side,” Parker says.

But in the end, the benefits agreement, which is being hailed as one of the strongest in the entire country, includes living wage jobs, 52,000-square-feet of community space, environmentally-friendly building design, money for local businesses, local hiring targets and other benefits.

In the end, things worked out for everybody, Parker says. He got his ice rinks, more than doubling the amount of rinks in New York City when they open in 2018. And the community will eventually get good-paying jobs and center of activity to lift up the surrounding area.

“I wouldn’t have done it any other way,” he says. “They had one chance to get the Armory right — one chance. The community should be proud of the people they put in place to protect these situations.”

Problems solved.