New York’s City Council approved a proposal to build a hockey and figure-skating center at the site of the former Kingsbridge Armory.
The council’s 48-1 vote on Dec. 10 “will bring an iconic Bronx landmark back to life,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is expected to sign the bill. “What is now an abandoned structure will soon become the world’s largest indoor ice rink facility.”
Former New York Rangers star Mark Messier and Olympic gold-medal winning figure skater Sarah Hughes from Long Island promoted the project to build the Kingsbridge National Ice Center.
KNIC Partners, founded by former Wall Street executive Kevin Parker, will invest an expected $320 million in the facility. The city anticipates an estimated $1 million a year. KNIC will pay the city $1 a year to lease the armory plus 5% of annual gross revenue.
The five-acre Kingsbridge building, in the Bronx neighborhood by that name and sitting about three miles north of Yankee Stadium, opened in 1918 to host the Eighth Regiment Armory. The National Register of Historic Places listed it in 1982.
It has been mostly unoccupied since 1996, when the National Guard vacated the building. New York City then assumed the title from the state.
Fernando Cabrara, the holdout among Bronx council members, finally voted for the plan after receiving promises from developer KNIC Partners to fund traffic mitigation studies. The lone dissenter was Brooklyn’s Charles Barron, who found nine rinks excessive.
