At long last, the Kingsbridge Armory will become a bustling center of activity. For that, Bronx residents can “thank” Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.
This week, the city announced that an exciting ice complex will be up and running in the former armory — by 2018.
For those keeping score, and assuming the rink is completed on time, it means opening day will come nine years after Diaz torpedoed an earlier proposal for a shopping mall on the same site. The mall would have brought 1,200 permanent jobs.
Alas, it wasn’t enough for Diaz, whose county has the state’s highest unemployment rate. He insisted the City Council require all employees of the mall, including future retail hires, be paid a “living wage.”
That stipulation made the project economically unviable, and the developer walked away. In response, Diaz did an obscene happy-happy-joy-joy dance, issuing a declaration that bears remembering: “The notion that any job is better than no job,” he thundered, “no longer applies.”
Call it the Diaz Doctrine. The result was to keep the armory undeveloped and deny Bronx residents jobs. We have nothing against the new ice complex on its own, but as Diaz celebrates with former Ranger Mark Messier and Olympian Sarah Hughes, surely he’d like everyone to forget that this rink promises only 200 permanent jobs.
And here’s the kicker: While the Messier group promises to pay employees living wages — there’s no mandate in their contract to do so.
So Ruben Diaz managed to keep the armory shuttered for years — and for what? For 1,000 fewer jobs than could have been had four years ago.
Nice going, Ruben.