(
)
The two-year political stalemate over Kingsbridge Armory in The Bronx — the city’s most embarrassing monument to government ineptitude — has ended.
Mayor Bloomberg plans to announce in his State of the City speech today that he’s reached a deal with Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. to issue a new request for proposals to develop the 575,000-square-foot vacant armory, said to be the largest facility of its type in the world.
It would be the second such RFP issued by the city in 5 1/2 years.
“We’re launching a new effort to bring jobs to the most talked-about empty building in The Bronx: the Kingsbridge Armory,” Bloomberg said in prepared remarks.
“We’ve heard from a variety of interested parties, and we are putting aside our differences to do what’s best for the city. That’s what leadership is about. It’s not about a series of running arguments — it’s about getting things done.”
Kingsbridge has been in limbo since late 2009, when The Related Companies was preparing to build a $300 million retail complex in the landmarked structure.
Advocates led by Diaz demanded that businesses settling inside a rebuilt Kingsbridge be required to pay a “living wage” of at least $10 an hour, plus $1.50 in benefits. In an astonishing statement, Diaz argued that minimum-wage jobs paying $7.25 an hour were worthless.
“The notion that any job is better than no job no longer applies,” he said back then.
When the mayor and Related balked, the entire project was scuttled and more than five years of work went down the drain.
Diaz is singing a different tune today.
With unemployment in his borough reaching 12.6 percent in November — the highest of any county in the state — the borough president said he’ll allow the wage debate to play out in the City Council, which is considering a fiercely contested bill that would require all businesses citywide receiving government subsidies to pay a $10-an-hour minimum. It’s not clear if the bill will come up for a vote.
“He’s told people he’ll go with whatever the City Council does,” confided one source.
In a statement issued late yesterday, Diaz said he was “thrilled” by the mayor’s action.
“The usage of the Kingsbridge Armory has been a major priority of my administration and this new RFP will allow the city to seek developers from a wide spectrum of potential uses . . .”, the Beep said.
Diaz is looking to run for citywide office, probably public advocate, next year.
Insiders said he’s not likely to get significant support from the business community if Kingsbridge is still sitting empty a year from now.
For the mayor, a revitalized Kingsbridge would burnish his development legacy, which now largely rests on the Hudson Yards and the Cornell graduate engineering campus planned on Roosevelt Island.