Much of the talk across the city has been focused on its failed attempt to keep Amazon locked into a deal that would have brought a state-of-the-art campus to Long Island City, Queens.
Critics wanted more than the estimated 25,000 jobs it promised to bring. The outright resentment over how the deal was rushed through with very little input from the existing residents who live in New York City, according to reports, riled progressive Democrats to organize. Hindsight being 20-20, perhaps Amazon’s stakeholders could’ve headed the northernmost borough in the city to find how communities are won over by massive projects.
It’s in the Bronx where the Kingsbridge Armory is poised, albeit in the slowest possible manner, to become the world’s largest ice skating rink, at least that’s the last the paper has heard. Dubbed the Kingsbridge National Ice Center (KNIC), the plan will ultimately see nine Olympic-size ice-skating rinks and a 5,000-seat arena built into the cavernous project. Total cost of the project runs $355 million.
Skepticism surrounded the project, which was picked over another commercial project dubbed Mercado Mirabo. In the end, the KNIC project had won over the community thanks to developer Kevin Parker’s agreement to a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) pushed largely by the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition as a way of avoiding displacement while also offering existing residents, many who feared evictions in the long term, a chance to reap some of the proposed benefits. This included a living wage of $10 ($11 for those without insurance), and guaranteed jobs for Bronx residents. Amazon never outlined a comprehensive plan and was severely villainized for it.
It’s the CBA, agreed upon well before the New York City Council voted to approve the project in December 2013, that locked in existing community support. And it’s intended to activate the moment the project is up and running.
It’s clear that the KNIC project has been stuck on the first gear for the last six years. In March 2018 Parker sent a letter to supporters telling them that the project would see shovels in the ground 8 to 10 months later. So far nothing’s happened. But finances and progress aside, the project was embraced by the community thanks to the CBA.
Amazon, one of the richest companies in the planet, could’ve offered some variation of this to appease the progressive movement that single-handedly reversed the deal. They slightly did through its payments in lieu of property taxes, where half the payments would be placed in an infrastructure fund to improve streets and sidewalks surrounding the Amazon campus. But that agreement is not the same as a document directly outlining community needs.
But progressives take umbrage when big companies won’t speak directly to the very people who live there, opting instead to talk to lawmakers whose aspirations for higher office meant they wanted to see this deal passed badly. Negotiating a deal in a smoke-filled room, especially in New York City, doesn’t bode well. Bronx progressives can tell you that.
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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.
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You are using the KNIC as an example of how to do things the right way? I’ve been reading about this for 7 years now, and still the project has not even started, An entire generation of hockey players has missed out. The moral of KNIC is not that Amazon should follow its example, its that any business should run away from NYC!
If Bronx residents and electeds wanted movement in a project at Kingsbridge Armory, they ought to have gone with New York City Football Club and MLS. You’d be near completion and people would be working already, both construction and ongoing.
And in a sport the community be would be using in far greater numbers in the public space, and at far less family expense.
You have a white elephant on your hands.