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BROOKLYN SKATING RINK PUT ON ICE

A much-anticipated ice-skating rink planned for under the Brooklyn Bridge is on hold indefinitely because the city Department of Transportation plans to use the prime real estate for storage, officials confirmed yesterday.

The 85-acre Brooklyn Bridge Park project now under construction calls for using this one acre of land under the bridge seasonally for an ice-skating rink in the winter and a public market or plaza during warmer weather.

But a DOT spokesman said the property can’t be turned over as parkland until at least five years of bridge rehabilitation work is done first. Besides needing the site for storage during the bridge job, he said there will be sandblasting and painting done under the span and that the public should be nowhere near the area during this time.

The former Purchase Building tract is DOT-owned, and was last used as a temporary home to the Office of Emergency Management, but DOT is supposed to give it up for the new waterfront park in DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights.

The old building, a 1930s-era Art Deco structure that local preservationists tried to save, was demolished last month to make way for the long-awaited park.

City Councilman David Yassky, whose district includes the park, said: “We all know how the bureaucracy works – a few years will become five years, and then 10 years, and then you can kiss that section of the park goodbye.

“This land was promised for parkland, and it should stay that way. Surely DOT can store its equipment somewhere else nearby.”

Nancy Webster, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy, also called on DOT to try finding another storage space.

Sources said DOT and the city-state Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp. fought internally over the land, with DOT ultimately winning out.

Regina Myer, president of the development corporation, said in a statement “precise timing and size of the space needed is being finalized.”

Parts of the new park are expected to be complete by the end of 2009.

rich.calder@nypost.com