The two competing bidders looking to redevelop the vacant Kingsbridge Armory into something both profitable and beneficial to the community gave their final pitch to local residents last week at a forum hosted by Community Board 7.

During 20-minute presentations inside a Monroe College auditorium on Jerome Avenue, Young Woo & Associates and representatives from the Kingsbridge National Ice Center (KNIC) laid out their proposals in the most detailed fashion yet. The style and substance of their presentations reflected the stark contrast between the two proposals.

While many came out to support one project or the other — including a large contingent representing the Zulu Nation, which is pushing hard for the Armory to become the site for a National Hip Hop Museum, part of Young Woo’s town square-style market proposal — others left undecided, but encouraged by both presentations.

“Both plans have merit,” said Nelson Beltran, 26, a Fordham-area resident. “But I’m probably leaning toward Mercado Mirabo [the name of Young Woo’s project]. It has more to offer, more permanent jobs, that’s a big thing.”

Young Woo’s “Mercado Mirabo” proposal includes the promise of 800 permanent jobs on site, compared to the 175 total permanent jobs included in the ice center proposal. Presenters for the ice center, however, said all of the permanent jobs created at the Armory will pay a so-called living wage of $10 an hour plus benefits or $11.50 an hour without benefits. Young Woo says it can’t guarantee all of the permanent jobs will pay a living wage, but that its plan will create at least 175 living wage jobs.

The similarities in the number of living wage jobs created — the lack of which proved the undoing of a plan three years ago to turn the Armory into a giant shopping mall — is about the only thing the two proposals share.

One group wants to build the world’s largest ice sports complex and marry it with a youth athletic and tutoring program. The other wants to make the Armory a cool, innovative and flexible market space that also offers entertainment, recreational and small business start-up space.

Branding the Bronx

Up first last Thursday evening was Young Woo & Associates, the Manhattan-based firm that created the Chelsea Market. They brought out not only CEO and founder, Young Woo, but also its other partners and the project’s entire design team. Dressed in sharp, stylish dark suits (no ties), the Young Woo team exuded an air of modern Manhattan chic, offering the Bronx a chance to join the wave of development that has transformed Brooklyn.

Having a Mercado Mirabo at the Armory would help the Bronx develop its own brand of excitement and attractiveness, they said.

“Why is Brooklyn the only borough with a brand?” said Greg Carney, a partner at Young Woo.

Young Woo called its plan a “futuristic town hall” that would be anchored with a movie theater complex that would include the nation’s first 4-D theater (adding the dimension of feel and smell to the movie watching experience), a Crunch gym, the world’s largest indoor climbing wall and two “junior” retail stores (they mentioned an Apple Store and Bed, Bath and Beyond as possibilities).

But Young Woo says its true “anchor” would be the flexible market where entrepreneurs and artists could sell their wares without much overhead cost ($60 would be the baseline entry fee). They also introduced a plan to create “co-working” space that local start-ups could use to build their businesses and, at the same time, network with other entrepreneurs.

During weekdays and down times on the weekends, Mercado Mirabo would include space for other recreational activities, including basketball and indoor soccer. They envisioned the space also being home to regional basketball and soccer tournaments as well as big-time concerts.

Over the past several months, Young Woo’s proposal has evolved to include more specifics and more partners. Last spring, they partnered with the New York Gauchos, a Bronx-based youth basketball program, and Pinta and Grupo Arts, an international arts programming outfit.

One of the proposal’s strongest moments came when Rocky Bucano, the head of the Gauchos, which just celebrated its 45th anniversary, talked about the thousands of kids who have developed into stars through its programs, including Hall of Famer Chris Mullin.

Passionate About Ice and Kids

The group behind the ice center is led by Kevin Parker, a former executive at Deutsche Bank, and is backed by two of the world’s biggest stars on ice — Olympic gold medal-winning figure skater Sarah Hughes and New York Rangers hockey legend Mark Messier.
Their plan, presented simply and directly by one of the group’s partners, Jonathan Richter (wearing a tie and aided by one person on a laptop), is to retrofit the Armory into a regional ice sports mecca, complete with nine skating rinks, including a 5,000-seat arena and an outdoor rink.

Richter tried to downplay any comparisons with Yankee Stadium, saying the complex would be open 365 days a year (not just during the 81 home games each year), from 5 a.m. to 10 or 11 at night. That type of programming, Richter said, would space out the 3 million expected visitors throughout the day and reduce potential traffic and congestion problems. At the same time, it would offer a steady stream of potential customers for area merchants — parents and kids heading to practice or instruction and adults playing in leagues. (Christian Ramos of the Kingsbridge Road Merchants Association said his group supported the ice project because it wouldn’t compete with local businesses.)

The ice group has also pledged to dedicate 50,000 square feet for community space and develop a free youth program based on a successful model created in Philadelphia by Flyers owner Ed Snider.

“We’re passionate about ice, we’re passionate about kids and we’re passionate about making a positive impact in the community,” Richter said.

In summing up their proposal, Richter told the story of Messier’s first trip to tour the Armory, several months ago. The hockey star arrived about an hour early and just drove around the neighborhood surrounding the hulking Armory. It’s an area surrounded by schools and dense housing.

He told the partners: “You know what you’re going to do here, right? You’re going to transform this community. It will be a magnet for these kids.”

Richter’s group expressed interest in the Armory last summer, long before the city released its request for proposals earlier this year and their enthusiasm for the project is largely seen as the reason why the city launched another RFP for the Armory.

Another big part of the ice presentation was a plan to build an ice sports and wellness-themed public school where the National Guard currently resides, something the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance (KARA) has long held as one of its principal goals in any potential Armory project. Plans for a school were not included in the RFP, but they included them anyway. Richter said his group would pursue the school just as hard as they pushed the city to release a new RFP for the Armory.

Weighing the Benefits

Marlene Cintron is the head of the Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation, the Bronx borough president’s economic development arm. She attended the forum and asked several questions of both developers even though her office, like the borough president, is publicly supporting the ice center project.

Cintron lives near Yankee Stadium. She said her community and the surrounding business district has not benefited from the new stadium’s construction, which was pitched to the community as an economic development engine.

“I know what we didn’t get [with the stadium],” she said.

Last winter, Cintron visited Philadelphia to check out the successful youth ice sports program that KNIC is modeling its program on. After seeing its benefits in a community similar to Kingsbridge, Cintron said she was convinced it was the right fit for the Armory. The idea behind the program is simple: bring in a report card and you get free ice time as well as tutoring help.

At the ice facility in Philadelphia, Cintron said she spoke with a mother of three sons who were in the program and benefiting from it. One of the sons no longer needed attention deficit drugs to stay focused; another stopped skipping school; and the third kid, a successful student, was doing even better than before.

How did she find out about the program? She saw kids going into the facility from her window.

After sitting through both presentations, Miguel Rodriguez needed to use the bathroom. Rodriguez, a member of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition and KARA, said he was still “fuzzy” on which project was best for the community. But he did like the fact that the ice center group included the school even though it wasn’t part of the RFP.

Rodriguez and KARA asked both developers if they would enter into a binding community benefits agreement and to come out to a rally on Wednesday, Oct. 17. Both said they were open to entering into a benefits agreement and would try to make it to the rally.

“The most important thing,” Rodriguez said, “is that we need to hold them accountable.”

Editor’s note: This story was originally published in the Oct. 18-31 print edition of the Norwood News.

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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.