Norwood News

Fernando Tirado, the district manager of Community Board 7, thought the Lehman College faculty dining hall, with its 400-person capacity, would provide ample space for a public hearing on a plan to develop the vacant Kingsbridge Armory into one of the Bronx’s biggest malls.

“We estimated there would be about 200 people there,” Tirado said, a week after the June 24 hearing.

Throughout the course of the loud, often contentious, four-hour hearing, however, some 600 people showed up (many were prevented from entering), and at least 45 spoke. The hearing represented the last opportunity for community residents, advocates and stakeholders to address the community board before its 30-plus volunteer members vote on whether or not to support the project on July 14.

The board’s vote is advisory only, but it sets the tone for the rest of the land use review process (see page 2), which will culminate in a City Council vote later this fall.

Making Their Case
Speakers at the hearing were there to make their case, either for or against, the project, which would turn the gigantic and vacant Armory into a 575,000-square-foot retail shopping center that would also include 27,000 square feet of space for some sort of community use.

Members of the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance (KARA), which includes community groups, local clergy, unions and residents, came out in force to implore Board members to vote down the project if it doesn’t include a Community Benefits Agreement that would guarantee living wage jobs ($10 an hour, plus benefits) at the revamped Armory. They painted the project as a “poverty-wage center” for local residents and a cash cow for rich developers, The Related Companies, who are already slated to get millions in city subsidies for the project. 

Several speakers, including a handful of construction workers from the group Positive Workforce, a nonprofit group that advocates for getting more minorities on job sites, told Board members to vote for the project because it would bring good construction jobs.

Representatives from the supermarket chain Morton Williams, which operates a store and has its headquarters across the street from the Armory on Jerome Avenue, protested Related’s plan to put a huge supermarket in the basement of the Armory.

A Show of Force
From the beginning, the hearing was a show of force. First, by the Related-supporting members of Positive Workforce, who stormed into the building, nearly trampling police officers as well as Tirado, and then set themselves up as a flag-waving backdrop to all the night’s speakers.

Then by KARA supporters, who, through their testimony, said the project should be more than just a shopping mall. KARA and Morton Williams organized the bulk of the testimony.

Board 7 Chairman Greg Faulkner said the hearing felt a little too scripted. “I think the hearings are important, but I don’t know if [the Board] got to really hear what the community wants.”

Positive Workforce brought nearly 100 of its members to support Related. Lucky Rivera, the group’s founder, said Related works hard to get minorities, who are often discriminated against, onto construction sites.

Audience members grumbled that Related had brought Rivera’s group to the hearing.

Jesse Masyr, a lawyer and spokesperson for the Related Companies, said they “notified” Positive Workforce of the meeting, but he bristled at the suggestion by many people in the audience that the company paid them to be there. “We did not, nor have we ever, paid people to come to a public hearing,” he said.

Heckling a Folk Hero
The hearing began bizarrely. After a round of “special” speakers, all of whom said they supported the project, Ozzie Brown, the chair of the Board’s Land Use Committee, introduced his old friend Peter Yarrow (of the famed folk music group Peter, Paul and Mary) to set the tone for the meeting with a song and some words.

The hyped crowd gave Yarrow a tepid reception, at times even heckling him. He did manage to get about half the crowd involved in a sing-along version of the old folk song, “If I Had a Hammer,” but his speech about civil rights and peace ended with KARA supporters thunderously chanting: “What do we want? Good jobs!” “When do we want ‘em? Now!”

Later, Yarrow said he was surprised by the level of anger in the room and said he thinks people misunderstood why he was there, which was not to support the project, but to facilitate productive and peaceful dialogue.

Brown followed with a presentation on his vision for a World Peace Atrium inside the Armory.

Related lawyer Ethan Goodman followed Brown with a presentation on the developer’s vision for the Armory as a state-of-the-art retail mall that would preserve the exterior of the building and open up the inside to the community. For the first time, Related’s plan also included the Peace Atrium.
The regular testimony didn’t begin until an hour into the hearing.

The Board Reaction
A week later, Tirado said the Board tried to make the process as “democratic as possible,” but he was still receiving “hate mail” from people who were upset about the hearing and said they weren’t allowed to speak. 

Board member Barbara Stronczer said she felt the community’s voice was heard, but that she still didn’t know how she was going to vote.

After the hearing, Faulkner said that the Board basically had three options: vote for the project without any conditions; vote the project down because it didn’t contain living wage guarantees; or vote for the project with conditions, including the signing of a Community Benefits Agreement.

Faulkner’s leaning toward the latter, saying the Board was still working to craft a viable benefits agreement with KARA and the borough president’s office in the near future.