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Path to Schools at Armory May Go Through Wakefield

It’s a game of musical buildings in the Bronx’s School District 10, one of the most crowded districts in the city.

Parents and advocates have been trying for years to have new school space built at the Kingsbridge Armory Annex, a cluster of buildings on West 195th Street, between Jerome and Reservoir avenues.

For that to happen, however, the building’s current tenants — the National Guard — would have to move. Local organizers have suggested what they see as a perfect new home for the military units: a now-vacant building in Wakefield known as the Muller Army Reserve Center.

But there’s a catch. The Muller Center, at 555 Nereid Ave., is subject to the Base Reassignment and Closure, or BRAC, process—a federally-mandated procedure for closing excess military bases and transitioning them for community use. The process requires that priority be given to the needs of the homeless in the area, making it a possibility that the Muller building could be used as a shelter, an idea community members are resistant to.

“I don’t see any way it could benefit the community,” said Father Richard Gorman, chairman of Community Board 12.

There are already two homeless housing projects in the works in the Wakefield neighborhood, he added, saying the area doesn’t need any additional sites.

Gorman said the proposal to move the National Guard into the facility would be a “win-win” for the neighborhood, as it would be an appropriate use for the building and would simultaneously free up space at the Armory Annex for much-needed schools.

A decision on the Muller Center has been delayed by the city, he said.

The building’s future is in the hands of a Local Redevelopment Authority (LRA)—a panel comprised of  the Bronx borough president and two deputy mayors.

A spokesman from the city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC), which began accepting Notices of Intent from community groups for use of the building last year, said that no decision has been made yet about the Center’s future. The deadline was pushed back 270 days to Dec. 15, according to the spokesman, because the LRA is still reviewing its applications.

Liseth Pérez Almeida, press secretary for Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., who serves as the chairman of the LRA, said Diaz is behind the community’s efforts to free up space at the Armory.

“The BP strongly supports using it to house the National Guard units from the Armory to facilitate development of schools,” she wrote.

But the National Guard will have to compete with two community groups who are also vying for the space. An article in the New York Daily News last fall reported that the Doe Fund and the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation (SoBro) were petitioning to use the site.

The Doe Fund, a Manhattan-based non-profit that runs a work readiness program and supportive housing for the homeless, said it could not comment on whether or not it had applied.

Phillip Morrow, SoBro’s president and CEO, said the group had indeed submitted an application for the building in response to the EDC’s Requests for Proposals, but that they hadn’t heard anything about it since.

“You probably know about as much as we do,” Morrow said. “It’s sort of fallen off our radar.”

SoBro had proposed using the space to build a Challenger Center, a mock space shuttle that children could use to learn about the science and technology behind space travel. The rest of the building, he said, would be used as permanent housing for the homeless, which SoBro included in the plan to align itself with the EDC’s request. SoBro has since started looking for other buildings to house their space center.

The EDC spokesman said there will be a public hearing, followed by a period for public comment on the reuse plan and homeless assistance submission, before a decision is made by the end of the year. Dates have not yet been set.

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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