Developers of the Kingsbridge National Ice Center (KNIC) have shot down a deal with the city allowing them access to the vacant Kingsbridge Armory while their lease remains in escrow, among other things. The development came roughly a week after the city reached out to local and state elected leaders to support its new compromise that remains on the table.

In a two-page letter emailed to the media before KNIC saw it, New York City Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen offered developers entry into the armory, with the lease still in escrow, so it can begin some major asbestos removal work.

Glen, who oversees major real estate transactions for the New York City Economic Development Corporation on behalf of the de Blasio Administration, agreed to give KNIC until Dec. 30 to show it has $158 million needed to start the project, extending it from its original deadline of April 25.

KNIC maintains it has fulfilled its side of a 2014 lease agreement thanks to a $138 million loan ready to be awarded by the Empire State Development corporation to get the nine-rink project going, a point the city says falls short of releasing the lease. Currently, KNIC has $20 million in private investment for the project. The combined monies are enough to get the project started, KNIC argues.

Notwithstanding, the new agreement was intended to move the project forward. Glen also justified the city’s position to keep the lease in escrow by arguing it “must guard against a worst-case scenario in which the City turns over a 99-year lease for this 750,000 square foot facility only to see construction stall mid-project.”

The costs of “removing and renovating a partially completed ice center could prove fatal to any alternative effort” for the armory should the KNIC project fail, Glen argued.

In a letter responding to the city’s position, KNIC CEO Mark Messier rejected the offer, saying it has satisfied the terms of a lease agreement and is entitled to the lease in its totality.

“[T]he community is entitled to all of the opportunities and benefits which will flow from our project,” wrote Messier, adding his rejection to the compromise on the grounds that it “limits the ability of this project to realize its full potential.”

KNIC had already offered to leave the project entirely if it doesn’t have financing available by Dec. 30, though it has virtually guaranteed they will have the funding in place, according to a letter dated April 1, nearly two weeks before the offer. In its letter, KNIC also agreed to pay any attorneys’ fees “in the unlikely event any eviction litigation occurred in connection with such proceedings.”

Before the deal was presented, Wiley Norvell, the de Blasio Administration’s communications advisor on housing and economic development matters, reached out to local elected leaders, to support the deal with the goal to “see the project through.”

Among those contacted was state Senator Gustavo Rivera, a major proponent of KNIC whose district covers the Armory. Rivera told the Norwood News he was briefed on the compromise, and discussed it with “members of the administration some of the potential benefits and obstacles such a proposal would pose to the project.”

“Overall, I was supportive of the City’s efforts to find a compromise with the developer that both protected this historic property and moved this transformative project forward for the Kingsbridge community and the Bronx overall,” said Rivera, who emphasized that Glen did not directly reach out to him.

Glen was named in a lawsuit filed by KNIC in early April alleging she was secretly working behind the scenes with former KNIC principals, Jonathan Richter, to divert control of the project to him and two of his partners, Jeff Spiritos and Marcos Wignell. It’s purported that Glen and Richter have had a long-standing friendship.

Glen called the lawsuit “totally unfounded and an unproductive step in moving the project forward.” Norvell, also frustrated, said the deal with still remains.