When Mark Messier first announced his intentions to build a new skating complex inside the Kingsbridge Armory, it sounded crazy. This is the Bronx, after all. When it was revealed there would be eight rinks in total, it sounded insane.

But the Kingsbridge National Ice Center recently launched its social media campaign—what bid for a public project would be complete without one?—and on the project's Facebook page are a number of models that show exactly how Mr. Messier and his team intend to pull off this wild engineering feat.

At the heart of the complex will be a main rink with 5,000 seats and Madison Square Garden-sized ceilings that go clear up to the the massive buildings roof. On either side of center ice will be four more, stacked two on top of each other. All of the rinks will be NHL or Olympics regulation size. There will also be some retail concessions, which are tentatively to be filled by local businesses, as well as 30,000 square feet of community space.

The whole effort underscores just how massive the armory is in the first place.

As for who the heck skates in the Bronx, the Kingsbridge National Ice Center intends to launch a number of programs to get local kids and families on the ice, including a free after-school program modeled on the successful Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation in Philadelphia. There is also plans to partner with the Urban League to create some sort of ice sports public school, as well as transforming the exterior of the building into ample open space, including an outdoor rink for wintertime skating.

Whether this will be enough to convince local stakeholders remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure: It sure is a heck of a lot nicer than a giant mall.

His eyes are set on the Bronx. (Sports Illustrated)

New York is not much of a hockey town. The Rangers are the top team in the league right now, and still the awfulness of the Knicks gets more attention. The Super Bowl is sucking up a lot of air time, but even if the Rangers win the Stanley Cup—their first since 1994, second since 1940—the back pages of the tabs will still spend most of their time on off-season baseball news.  Sean Avery's sartorial choices attract more attention than a Henrik Lundqvist shut out.

Thus The Observer almost slipped on the ice in surprise when two reports surfaced yesterday about hockey coming to some unlikely places.

The first is not all that surprising: The New York Islanders, truly an abysmal franchise, will play at the Barclays Centre next season. It's only a preseason game, but one that Brooklyn hockey fans should enjoy, especially as it will be against cross-Hudson rivals the New Jersey Devils—the Rangers still think themselves too good to leave Manhattan perhaps.

Whether this move would ever become permanent remains unclear. It has been a possibility for some time as the Islanders fight for a new arena in Nassau County. In August, voters rejected a bond issuance for a new arena, part of a larger redevelopment called The Lighthouse and proposed by the team's owner, Charles Wong. Initially, Forest City had considered stripping an ice rink out of the Barclays Centre plan to save costs, but one could be installed for events like this preseason game and could possibly become a permanent feature.

Meanwhile, the ice is being laid in an even more unlikely place: the Bronx. According to Crain's Ranger's great Mark Messier has joined a group that hopes to bring a multi-rink complex to the Kingsbridge Armory, one of many possible bids to redevelop the massive building. If this sounds out of place for a majority minority community that favors baseball and basketball, the plan calls for a youth program aimed at getting kids off the streets and onto the ice.

“When I first heard ice hockey in the Bronx, there was a question mark in my mind,” one Bronx official told Crain's. “But when they made their presentation, I ended up with ice hockey in the Bronx with an exclamation point.”

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Imagine a family of four is looking at a rental apartment in the newly constructed Building A, which has received tax benefits. While the family likes the apartment very much, the parents are told that if they rent it, they must pay their children higher weekly allowances than they have been paying them. This family could also look at apartments in Building B across the street, which didn't receive any benefits when it was constructed. Given that the apartments in the two buildings were comparable, this would be an easy choice. In fact, all of the other buildings in the area do not require higher allowances to be paid.

Under these circumstances, potential tenants would clearly choose to rent apartments anywhere other than in Building A.

This is analogous to what has happened with the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx. A development agreement was proposed that would require not only construction workers redeveloping the property to be paid a "living wage," but the retail tenants that leased space in the building would also have been forced to pay their employees the same higher wages. The living wage is $10 per hour, or $11.50 without benefits, versus the $7.50 minimum wage in New York State. Many of the tenants that would be the drivers of this project would not be willing to pay wages at this level.

The result of this politically imposed requirement is that the 575,000-square-foot armory, located at 29 West Kingsbridge Road, in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx, remains vacant with no viable plan in sight to redevelop it.

The Kingsbridge Armory, which is also known as the Eighth Regiment Armory, is a former military facility that was constructed in the Romanesque style between 1912 and 1917. The property, which occupies an entire square block, was given to the city by the National Guard and was designated a landmark in 1974 by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The mammoth building has been sitting vacant since 1994, producing no tax revenue for the city, offering no jobs to residents of the Bronx and providing no benefits to the community.

You would think the property's redevelopment would be a priority for elected officials.

Several plans to redevelop the property have failed for various reasons, primarily due to surprising community opposition. Most recently, in 2006, the New York City Economic Development Corporation issued a request for a proposal for the sale and redevelopment of the property. After an extensive process, proposals were submitted, and the Related Companies was selected as the developer of the armory.

Prior to Related's selection, several community organizations, including churches, neighborhood groups and labor unions, formed the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance (KARA). KARA's mission was, ostensibly, to ensure sustainable community-based development. Their three main initiatives were (1) to ensure the creation of schools as part of the project; (2) to develop a vision on how to create a genuine public-private partnership in the armory development; and (3), most importantly, to pass living-wage legislation in New York City. KARA's efforts were endorsed and supported by several prominent elected officials, including Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz.

Notwithstanding that these advocates were pushing for a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) that included these provisions, Related was chosen as the winning bidder in March of 2008. Related's concept was to build a retail center that included many amenities beneficial to the community. In March of 2009, the city's Industrial Development Agency approved $17 million in tax breaks for this development, and Related's plans were certified by the Department of City Planning after they successfully made it through the ULURP process in May of 2009. The community advocates continued to push Related to guarantee living wages for all jobs at the armory.

A small detail that none of these advocates seemed to understand is that a project is not feasible if tenants will not rent space in the property. Even if the property was given away to a developer for nothing, these constraints make any development unfeasible. Related's plans anticipated investing approximately $310 million into the renovation of this property. This redevelopment would have created 1,000 construction jobs and 1,200 permanent jobs. Many of those opposing the plan have said that "no jobs would be better than inferior jobs."

They have gotten their wish.

THE ARGUMENT IS MADE that because taxpayer dollars were used to create incentives for this development, the public sector should control what the private sector pays its employees. However, what must be considered is that without public-sector subsidies, these developments are often not feasible. With $17 million in tax incentives, the public sector can stimulate $310 million of private-sector investment, creating thousands of jobs and producing $85 million of real estate taxes over a 30-year period-not a bad deal for the city and the community by any stretch of the imagination.

Notwithstanding these realities, the City Council voted 45 to 1 against this project because the developer was unwilling to incorporate living-wage language into the CBA. This was a rare move for the Council, which up until now has not rejected a major land-use proposal presented by the Bloomberg administration.

In opposing the development, the advocates took the position that the development would create huge traffic problems harmful to the local area. Their points included the following: Tens of thousands of auto trips daily through the community streets would increase congestion levels significantly; projected truck trips were grossly underestimated; off-street parking would accommodate only a fraction of the demand; Kingsbridge Armory traffic would result in increased traffic accidents; total vehicle delays would increase by 143 percent; fuel consumption would increase by 92 percent; and all of the traffic would cause additional environmental and health hazards to an area already suffering from high asthma rates.

These were among the arguments used to oppose the project. Are we to assume that these deleterious conditions would magically disappear if tenants were to pay higher wages to their employees? These advocates seem to think so.

The result today is that the armory continues to sit vacant, with no jobs created, no tax revenue generated and no benefits provided to the community. The borough president's response has been to form yet another task force to look into the redevelopment of the Kingsbridge Armory. This will be the third task force assembled to seek solutions for this wasting asset. Not only has it been an eyesore for the neighborhood, the city had to invest $25 million into this property to address its dilapidated and dangerous condition several years ago. The new task force, very noticeably, does not include Seth Pinsky from the Economic Development Corporation, who tellingly declined to accept the position on the task force.

Today, stakeholders indicated a willingness to explore all potential uses for the property, including "expansion of the film industry, arts and recreation space, green manufacturing or a combination of these and many other uses." Does anyone who is consulting on this project understand the amount of rent that filmmakers, artists and manufacturers can afford to pay? Although well intended, these ideas are ridiculous when it comes to the feasibility of commercial real estate development. If these uses are something the city truly wants, then the city should invest the $310 million and "give the space away" for uses that they seek. The city would be required to continue to subsidize the operation of the building, as the rents considered affordable by tenants for these potential uses would not even cover operating expenses.

The private sector has proposed three viable plans for the armory from three well-established, credible and community-minded developers. It is clear that the advocates are seeking living wages and union protections for the construction jobs and for the permanent jobs associated with this project. Moreover, it appears they would prefer a much grander plan: a living-wage law passed citywide on any projects receiving taxpayer subsidies.

For now, the advocates claim "victory" while the future of the Kingsbridge Armory remains uncertain. There are, however, a few things that are very clear and far from uncertain: $310 million will not be invested in the armory anytime soon; 2,200 jobs have not been created; and the city will not collect a nickel of real estate taxes on this property for the foreseeable future.

Congratulations to the project's opponents on this stunning victory for New York City.

rknakal@masseyknakal.com 

Robert Knakal is the chairman and founding partner of Massey Knakal Realty Services and has brokered the sale of more than 1,050 properties in his career.

In recent days, the city's Economic Development Corporation has begun reaching out to various organizations that would sit on the task force, including Good Jobs New York, the building service workers' union SEIU 32BJ, the Center for an Urban Future and the Partnership for New York City.

The administration expects to issue a request for proposals next month, seeking a private consultant to help create a policy report examining living/prevailing wages and the economic effects such policies might have on the city, according to a person familiar with the effort.

The effort seems to be a response to the unions and other groups, which have been pressing for higher mandated wages throughout the city, although particularly on developments that involve city subsidies or land-use approvals. Most recently, the Bloomberg administration suffered a humiliating defeat when its plans for a mall at the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx were defeated after a group of local elected officials demanded that all retail tenants pay at least $10 an hour ($11.50 without benefits), a new precedent in the city. The Bloomberg administration and the private developer building the mall refused, leading to the project's defeat at the hands of the City Council.

But the City Council is considered more liberal than it was just last year—a new progressive caucus was just formed this week—so the Bloomberg administration could also be seeking to grasp control of the issue itself before it is brought to the mayor's desk on the Council's terms. (For instance, there is a 32BJ-endorsed bill in the Council that currently has a majority of members signed on as co-sponsors, requiring that buildings getting certain city subsidies and incentives pay a prevailing wage to building service workers.) The Bloomberg administration is clearly reticent to add such requirements on developers, and particularly retailers, although it has agreed to living-wage provisions on specific developments in the past.

While there is substantial data and research on the living-wage issue nationally, there does not seem to be all that much catered to New York, and thus one could see a benefit from a thorough study.

"I think we have to start dealing with these issues outside of a project-by-project basis," said Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City. "As a city we really have to think through these issues and make decisions based on factual evidence."

ebrown@observer.com

Related refused; the Council voted it down; and the armory stayed vacant.

On Monday, Mr. Diaz announced the creation of a new task force charged with recommending a course of action at the armory, creating a report with suggestions for a request for proposals to develop it.

A statement from Mr. Diaz in his press release:

 "A retail mall was not the best use for this space, given the traffic issues and its proximity to the Fordham Road shopping district. My critics have challenged me to come up with something better for the Kingsbridge Armory, and I am prepared to answer that call. There are a number of different options besides retail that could eventually make their home in the armory, be it the expansion of the film industry, arts and recreation space, green manufacturing, or a combination of these and many other uses. This task force will examine those ideas and others, expand on the best of them and develop a report that we will use to help the City craft a new RFP for this iconic structure."

Whether or not there is indeed a viable alternative other than retail is yet to be seen. The retail deal between the city, which owns the armory, and Related only called for a small purchase price ($5 million), along with $13 million in incentives. Retail tends to be one of the higher-rent industries.

The task force's membership, per the release:

Majora Carter, environmental consultant; Marlene Cintron, president of the Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation; Paul Foster, chairman of Bronx Community Board #7; Jack Kittle, political director of District Council 9; Steven McInnis, political director for the New York City District Council of Carpenters; Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter, a board member of the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition; Ned Regan, former state comptroller; Jack Rosen, Chief Executive of Rosen Partners LLC; Steven M. Safyer, MD, President and CEO of Montefiore Medical Center, and Kathryn Wylde, President & CEO of the Partnership for New York City.

ebrown@observer.com

The Council voted on Monday afternoon, 48-1, to override the mayor's veto, as the body, and particularly most of the Bronx delegation, had become insistent that all retailers inside the mall pay a living wage to their employees, which would have been a new standard in the city.

The developer, the Related Companies, has shown no interest in sticking around for another go at the project, likely leaving the Amory empty for years to come, or at least until the real estate market booms once again. (Already, without living wage, the city was effectively giving away the giant armory to Related, determining that the company needed $13 million in tax breaks to make the project work, and that it would only pay $5 million for the property.)

The vote is a victory for living wage advocates, led by Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union president Stuart Appelbaum, and a major defeat for the Bloomberg administration (which never before suffered such a defeat on a land use issue from the Council) and other unions that backed the project, such as the Building Trades.

Already, the RWDSU is looking to expand the fight, as the union trekked to a mall in Queens to demand that retailers raise their wages.

ebrown@observer.com

Speaking in the wake of the City Council's rejection of a proposed mall project in the Bronx, Mayor Bloomberg, side by side with Council Speaker Christine Quinn, emphasized "creating jobs;" of "progress" on development projects; of cooperation with the City Council.

On hand to trumpet the Council's expected approval (there was a vote greenlighting the project Monday afternoon) of a rezoning of the West Side rail yards, a $15 billion development, the mayor clearly wanted to shift the focus away from the stinging defeat at the mall project, the Kingsbridge Armory.

In addition to the rail yards, the city's Broadway Triangle project was approved Monday by the Council, seeming to conclude a saga over the large below-market rate housing site in Brooklyn that has been pushed relentlessly by Assemblyman Vito Lopez (attracting a high level of controversy in the process).

Speaking to reporters, the mayor ticked off a list of projects he put under the banner of progress: Coney Island, Willets Point; Hunter's Point South in Queens; Homeport in Staten Island.

"For decades, leaders have tried to tap the potential of these projects, but they're actually getting done now," he said. "These projects are leaping off the drawing boards and into reality. They're creating jobs for New Yorkers and affordable housing for families."

Such a characterization as "leaping" is a stretch to be sure, as the largest projects, while approved by the Council, now depend on the market, and few, if any, are moving anywhere fast. The city has made some movement in these projects, though no one can realistically expect Coney Island or Willets Point to be developed any time soon. (Then again, the Atlantic Yards project is poised to move forward at the end of the month.)

On the rail yards, for instance, both city officials and executives from the developer, the Related Companies, gave a number of awkward responses to repeated questions about when everything would be finished at the site. In reality, whether or not the site ever gets developed will depend on whether the developer can convince retailers and businesses to take a leap of faith and build big in a nascent business district. Related has an obligation to sign a contract with the M.T.A., which owns the yards, by the end of January, or the firm risks forfeiting the deal.

With that said, all the projects received approval from the Council at the mayor's urging, unlike the Kingsbridge Armory, which was defeated because the city and the developer, the Related Companies again, refused to mandate that all retailers inside pay a living wage ($10 an hour, or $11.50 without benefits) to all employees.

On this subject, the mayor made clear his feelings.

"It's a great tragedy," he said, listing benefits the $320 million project would have bestowed on the community, regardless of the minimum wages its retailers paid. "Now they have nothing, and we have a building that's been vacant for 30 years, it's costing the taxpayers something like half a million a year to maintain, and we're going to have to continue to pay that without anything to the community."

Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who went along with the Bronx delegation to oppose the development without the living wage requirement on retailers (which has no precedent in New York City, though there are a few municipalities nationwide that have one), sought to play down allegations of a new rift between the Council and the mayor.

"We're not agreeing on Kingsbridge, the only economic development project in the four years of the mayor and I working together where we haven't been able to come to an agreement," she said. "We will never let one disagreement force us into a place where we can't find other points of commonality."

ebrown@observer.com

The City Council had just voted, 45-1, to block a planned new mall at the Bronx’s Kingsbridge Armory, as the developer, the Related Companies, balked at requiring its retail tenants to pay wages of at least $10 an hour—$11.50 without benefits—a so-called living wage. And while the elected officials on hand gave a disclaimer that the event was not actually a “victory”—there now will be no wages of any sort at the armory, after all—they repeatedly boasted of a job well done, with the crowd of union members and activists erupting in cheers and applause as they pumped signs reading “We want living wages.”

“We can no longer support development that only ensures profits for barons while perpetuating poverty for people of the Bronx,” Ruben Diaz Jr., the Bronx borough president who led the fight for a mandatory living wage, bellowed. “That notion of any job is better than no job no longer applies.”

The bar for development in New York City just got higher.

With a resounding triumph behind them, the union that drove much of the living-wage push, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, and elected officials are already casting their eyes further out on the horizon. From the ashes of Kingsbridge, they now expect that the living-wage matter will rise up to appear in future individual developments as they come before the Council, and they will press for a citywide law requiring a living wage for most any project that receives city subsidy.

“As far as we’re concerned, the battle for middle-class jobs for New Yorkers has only just begun,” Stuart Appelbaum, president of the RWDSU, said.

This new terrain—and the extremely rare defeat of a development project—points to the rising influence of labor in the City Council, as city and state politics are reshaped with a louder, union-backed voice coming from elected officials. On top of the push for retail workers’ wages, the powerful building service workers union, SEIU 32BJ, is pushing a bill that would grant similarly high “prevailing” wages to building employees in subsidized projects citywide. And on the state level, a recent draft of a bill from Governor Paterson’s office called for wages of $19 an hour for any development receiving subsidies through certain state authorities, a measure viewed as a demonstration of support for labor.

The justification for living wages, by the telling of union leaders and elected officials, runs like this: If a developer is receiving public-sector subsidies, it should pay forward to the workers some of the government’s goodwill. And thanks to the Kingsbridge fight, numerous council members are now on the record demanding that a developer receiving city subsidies—Related, in this case—has the obligation to require living wages at its development. Given that the Council voted Related down because it did not meet that demand, how does it now turn to other developers and allow them to build without the same mandate?

In remarks at the vote, multiple council members used rhetoric to suggest such actions would continue. Charles Barron said he hoped the vote would be “precedent-setting,” and John Liu, the city comptroller–elect, said it “set a standard for accountability.”

Taking this to a citywide level, last week a bill was introduced by Bronx Councilman Oliver Koppell that would require living wages for workers in nearly every development that receives city subsidy or tax breaks (anything over $10,000). Although the bill expires at the end of the year, Mr. Koppel said he would reintroduce it next year, and expected to press the issue.

“The Council as a whole has a lot of sympathy to the idea of subsidized projects producing better jobs,” Mr. Koppell said Monday. “It makes more sense to do it on a broader level.”

All of this raises the question of whether living-wage requirements would have their desired effect—expanding wages in new developments—or whether they would simply mean far fewer jobs.

The real estate and business communities oppose the requirements and warn in particular that they would effectively halt any new large-scale retail development. “This is a matter where this is the complete triumph of ideology over practical common sense,” said Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a leading business group. “It’s not like there’s a lot of money for employers to spread around, and it’s very subject to economic cycles,” she said of retail.

This was Related’s position throughout the Kingsbridge fight—the company said it would not be able to get financing or tenants—and Related’s attorney, Jesse Masyr, said the principle would apply in other projects.

“I don’t see it,” he said of a broad living-wage requirement. “In the economic realities of today, I don’t see how you can put up this barrier and think people aren’t going to run around it.”

OF COURSE, NEW YORK would hardly be the first to put living-wage requirements on subsidized projects or government contracts. More than 100 cities nationwide have passed some sort of living-wage requirement, part of a larger movement throughout the country in the past 15 years. Retail, which generally pays low wages, is not included in the vast majority of these laws, though the trend seems to be going in that direction.

“There has been a general trend toward broader coverage of economic development projects under local wage laws,” said Paul Sonn, legal co-director at the National Employment Law Project and a drafter of numerous living-wage bills. “The early living-wage laws were focused on city contracting, but there has been a gradual expansion of them.”

A bill in Pittsburgh that would require living wages for subsidized developments in numerous sectors—in grocery stores; for hotel workers—has the support of most of the City Council there. Oakland has a law requiring living wages on subsidized retail developments; and Los Angeles has such a law for projects on city-owned land. (Ironically, Related is the designated developer on one of these projects, and it did not use the same arguments against the requirement as it did at Kingsbridge. That said, the developer cannot secure financing, and the project is not proceeding.)

It’s no certainty that the New York City Council will now feel compelled to demand that every development project offer a living wage. Those on the losing side of the Kingsbridge fight view it as something of an anomalous political situation in which the borough president had unusual influence (the local councilwoman, Maria Baez, lost her bid for reelection), a situation unlikely to be repeated.

Further, unions do not have a great track record at presenting a unified front when pushing for issues such as this, with pressure easing on legislators once one or two unions have their individual demands satisfied. In Kingsbridge, for instance, the Building Trades coalition of unions splintered off from RWDSU and other labor groups once it felt the project was actually threatened, and Related had been negotiating with 32BJ late last week on a separate deal.

And should Mr. Koppell’s legislation advance, it would presumably have to withstand a fight from the mayor. The Bloomberg administration was involved in days of negotiations in Kingsbridge and consistently pushed back against a living-wage requirement. The mayor has said he is against such a mandate on principle.

“It’s not the public sector’s role to try to set private-sector wages,” said Andrew Brent, a spokesman for the mayor. “The notion of introducing artificial wage requirements for an individual project when across the street there are none is not a realistic answer, would make the city less competitive and would result in less development and fewer jobs.”

ebrown@observer.com

The forthcoming rebuke--the Land Use committee Monday morning voted 17-1 against the project--is an extremely rare action for a Council that, in the end, almost always supports proposed development projects throughout the city.

But here, the debate evolved into a binary choice about living wage and whether to mandate that all retailers in the $323 million mall pay their employees at least $10 an hour. Related said this would be impossible--no bank would lend it the money to build, and no major retailer would agree to come in when wages could be different at a nearby store.

But the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union applied heavy pressure on the issue, saying no jobs were better than "poverty jobs" (not noting that a major portion of the mall's jobs were to have been above $10 an hour), and proceeded to demand, successfully, that the Bronx delegation on the Council make an example of Related, and vote the project down. The Bloomberg administration tried to save the project, putting more subsidy into the deal and offering an optional living wage program for retailers.

In a sense, the vote injects a new sense of hazard into New York's land-use fights, in which the Council often threatens to vote against a given project but never actually pulls the trigger (concessions are always thrown its way to avoid a defeat).

The only other defeat in recent memory of a major development project at the Council was also a Related project: In 2005, the Council voted down a planned big-box development on Brush Avenue where Related wanted to put a BJ's.
Lobbyist Richard Lipsky, who opposed Related on both projects, called Monday  morning's move a "precedent-setting" one in a chat with The Observer's Azi Paybarah.

Update: 2:10 p.m.

The final vote in the full Council was 45-1, with the lone no vote coming from Councilwoman Helen Sears. Numerous speakers called the moment "historic," though Ms. Sears and one other member, Councilman Peter Vallone, questioned the logic in defeating a job-creating development in a recession.

ebrown@observer.com

"From the first day I got involved in the issue of the redevelopment of the Kingsbridge Armory, I made it crystal clear that I would not support this project unless it included a guarantee that the employees at the future retail center would be paid a living wage. Though the wage supplement provisions that the Bloomberg administration has put forward represent a major step forward compared to our negotiations six months ago, there is no guarantee. With that said, I will continue to oppose this project, and I urge the members of the City Council to do the same," said Diaz. "I am proud of the work that my office did to negotiate a strong community benefits agreement for this project that would offer the best possible benefits for the people of the Bronx. But the current proposals fall short of our stated goals, and I cannot, in good conscience, support this deal. I hope that the City Council will join me in opposition and vote this project down."

Diaz made a non-binding recommendation that the project not be approved unless such an agreement is signed during the land-use review process, but the Council vote is the binding action. Related has said such an agreement will make the project unsustainable and financially unviable.

Michael Bloomberg's administration has been pushing for development, and urging Council approval. A vote is expected on Monday.