The owner behind the beleaguered and virtually dormant Kingsbridge National Ice Center (KNIC) project, revealed a new start time for the plan, telling the Norwood News he intends to see the ambitious project through despite ongoing delays and legal follies.

“I’m very confident we’re gonna get there, it’s just not a straight line, nothing ever is in life,” said Kevin Parker, KNIC’s owner, in a phone interview with the Norwood News. “but we’re not going away and we’re here we’re battling and we’re putting one foot in front of the other taking the steps to get this thing done and hopefully within 12 months I hope to be able to announce that everything is in place and that the whole project is ready to be built.”

As has been the case from the start, the $355 million project is slated to be built inside the Kingsbridge Armory, a colossal five-acre fortress found at the corner of East Kingsbridge Road and Jerome Avenue in Kingsbridge Heights.

It’s not the first time Parker has imposed a new deadline for his venture. In March last year, he told members of KNIC’s community advisory board that the public won’t see any new progress until January this year. When that deadline arrived, nothing happened. Several months later, Parker told Crain’s New York it was near a deal to securing the construction loan. Once again, silence.

As it turns out, the project’s first phase is more complex than imagined. True, in 2016 KNIC received a $138 million loan commitment from the state’s Empire State Development corporation, an authority controlled by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to get the first phase of the project up and running. But the technical aspects to approving the construction loan and laying out its terms have presented the greatest challenge.

“[T]he mechanics of administering a construction loan are quite complicated and the state is simply just not set up to administer construction financing. So they basically insert a bank who has the capabilities of administering a construction loan in between,” said Parker. “So the bank actually manages the construction lending part of it so that the state doesn’t have to take something on that they are not equipped to do.”

Citibank was chosen to administer the loan, though that phase of the project has been on hold for now, Parker said, as architects begin putting Parker’s vision of nine ice skating rinks and a 5,000-seat arena inside the cavernous Armory to paper. “The guys that are working on the plan have been in the Armory a lot.”

“What we need to do now is finish the plans and submit [the plans], get the bid and then wrap up the rest of the financing,” said Parker. “You need all of those things in order to get a bid for construction. You need to get the plans in place first, then you need to hold the plans out for bid, then you need to raise the necessary amount of capital to complete the plan.”

Citibank declined to comment for this article.

The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), owners of the landmark property that committed to the offer of a 99-year lease to KNIC, maintains confidence in the project. A spokesperson with the NYCEDC said the agency “remains committed to supporting the Kingsbridge National Ice Center, which is anticipated to boost economic development and recreational activities for young children and families in the north Bronx.”

Parker’s commitment goes back to the days when he personally met with members of the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance, an offshoot of the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition. There, he bolstered the benefits of introducing hockey to a community unfamiliar with the sport.

“It grew beyond the initial altruism of trying to address in a small way the lack of ice in New York City to a much bigger goal in mind in a neighborhood that in many ways was forgotten, and has not kept up with general improvements in the economy and in the city and so forth,” said Parker. “It’s sort of a legacy idea and a way of giving back to the city. It became a kind of a centerpiece in that whole idea. I made a lot of friends in the Bronx and met a lot of people up there. We put people on buses down to Philadelphia, we showed them what can be done, and that it’s all about choice.”

Progress, it seems, hinges on how fast the architects can draft their plans for submission. In any event, Parker will be waiting.

“Once all that transpired, it became much more of a mission, given all the problems I’ve had and the challenges I’ve had in getting this done. It would have been far easier to walk away, no doubt,” said Parker.  “At great personal expense financially and reputationally, I made a decision a while ago that I was not going to give up on this project and I was going to see it through until the end.”

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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.