The Hunts Point Terminal Produce Market, upset over lack of progress towards a new long term lease for its 113-acre Bronx facility, will walk away from government offers of $172.5 million in grants towards new warehouses and hope the next mayor will offer a better deal, The Post has learned.
The Market members’ main beef is that City Hall has failed to get them out from under the regulatory eye of the city’s Business Integrity Commission — which they claim is stifling growth by issuing parking tickets and limiting the hours of operation, actions outside its City Council mandate.
“There is no reason to negotiate with the present administration,” Sid Davidoff, the market’s lawyer, told The Post.
The co-op’s 30-year lease ended in 2011 and a three-year gap lease ends in May. While it has a seven-year option to remain, that plan does not include the redevelopment “that they so desperately need,” said Davidoff.
Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., said the co-op had more or less come to terms on a financial package that would have provided roughly half the cost of new warehouses, with the members to pony up the rest.
“The money came from all levels of government,” said Diaz, Jr. “Now they want to wait for the next administration to see if they can get rid of BIC, but who knows what the economy will be like then?”
“We didn’t get what we needed on the regulatory side,” explained Matthew D’Arrigo, former president of the co-op, of the clashes with BIC that have led them to look to Westchester and New Jersey as possible new sites.
The co-op is comprised of 42 business owners who say they need to expand and build modern refrigerated warehouses with 13 different temperatures and conditions for different produce.
The current setup has only one temperature setting — and no backup generator.
The co-op juggles roads, buildings and 13 miles of rail tracks with yearly visits by 2,200 railcars, 120,000 tractor trailers and a million overnight buyers with small trucks and vans.
To handle excess capacity, a fleet of as many as 800 refrigerated trailers now idle 24/7 while burning a gallon of diesel fuel each per hour — adding to worries about local asthma rates.
Buyers also leave perishable produce on the currently unrefrigerated loading docks while they look over the roughly 2 million boxes of available produce before loading their purchases into — often — hot vans bound for bodegas.
Davidoff said City Hall should be worried about market conditions. “We really need to bring it up to the 21st century,” he said.
On the regulatory front, the co-op has long complained about rotten oversight by BIC, which was formed to keep out organized crime and to oversee gambling boats, garbage hauling and public markets.
But the BIC now has expanded way beyond their mandate, produce market executives claim.
There are small annoyances like giving out parking violations inside the market’s turf, but BIC has also added and increased fees just to buy and sell inside their boundaries, and even controls market hours, which for instance, becomes a hot button before busy holidays like Thanksgiving.
The owners sued the city last spring, saying BIC was interfering with their businesses, but the city argued a procedural step was skipped.
Last week Davidoff filed a 30-day notice of intent to refile the suit. A new lawsuit stating that BIC has overstepped its mandate will be filed later this fall, he said.
As for looking elsewhere in the region for a more hospitable spot, Davidoff says, “The co-op continues to be open to discussions with any parties that are interested in helping us build a market that will continue to serve our region both safely and efficiently for decades to come.”