[NYguy]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sport...ticle13085211/

Canadian fingerprints all over New York ice

JOE LAPOINTE
Jul. 09 2013

Looming eight subway stops north of Yankee Stadium is a brick, stone and concrete monstrosity called The Kingsbridge Armory, built almost a century ago in the Bronx to discourage civil unrest and to train soldiers. With turrets and cupolas, the armoury looks like a medieval castle. In front is an empty moat. Inside the basement and office wing, Kingsbridge feels like a haunted house, with bullet-pocked walls and dark, narrow halls displaying decades of graffiti.

But to Mark Messier and Sarah Hughes, in co-operation with private investors and New York City, the armoury represents a vision that could turbocharge hockey and figure skating in a metropolitan area of nearly 20 million people.

Messier (in the Hockey Hall of Fame) and Hughes (an Olympic gold medalist for the United States in 2002) are equity partners promoting The Kingsbridge National Ice Center, to open in five years with nine full-sized skating rinks under one huge roof.

The building is on a major train line and near several busy highways. Messier said it will attract not only neighbourhood youth and local leagues, but also top tournaments from around the United States and the world.

Backers hope the biggest ice facility on Earth will make money and diversify the ethnic culture of ice sports. That may sound grandiose, as optimistic as Messier’s promise two decades ago to lead the New York Rangers to the Stanley Cup. Messier delivered on that pledge in 1994, the team’s only championship since 1940. And he said last week that triumph could have meant much more.

....Messier is from Edmonton and Hughes’s father is from Toronto, but they are not the only participants with Canadian roots in a project involving $275-million (all currency U.S.) from developers and $30-million from the city.

The designer will be Murray Beynon of Toronto, whose BBB Architects oversaw construction of what was then called SkyDome in Toronto. Having designed Rogers Arena in Vancouver and Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Beynon’s firm is rebuilding New York’s Madison Square Garden from the inside out.

Beynon has called the Madison Square Garden project “a Rubik’s Cube of surprises” and “a herculean task.” The ancient armoury will be complicated in different ways, and Beynon sounds enthused. “It’s spectacular,” he said of the armoury’s interior. “Fabulous structure. It’s phenomenal.” He called the exterior “imposing” and “almost awe-inspiring.”

Of the project’s design, Beynon added: “We’ve been going pretty well full tilt for three months. We’re into the details.”

Ground breaking is scheduled for 2014, after final civic approval, which should be smooth in that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg welcomed the developers in a news conference on April 23.

http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.81203...ronx-1.5670953

Editorial: Welcome to a renaissance in the Bronx




7/11/13

Today the Bronx is burning with ambition.

The Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point is poised to open near Throgs Neck next year. The new Bronx Terminal Market shopping complex near Yankee Stadium is a home run. And Thursday State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli released a report showing that private-sector employment in the borough grew by 7.7 percent between 2007 and 2012 -- a pace outstripped only by Brooklyn.

It's quite an achievement. For decades the borough's urban decay was defined by the building fires caught on camera during Game 2 of the 1977 World Series. A few days before that game, President Jimmy Carter had stood in a rubble-strewn lot on Charlotte Street and demanded federal action to help rescue beleaguered cities.

Now -- in the past three decades -- the Bronx has seen a 33 percent gain in jobs and a 20 percent gain in residents.

But the most intriguing idea on the drawing board today is a $275-million plan to turn the 750,000-square-foot Kingsbridge Armory, built in 1917, into what promoters are calling the largest indoor ice-skating and hockey complex on Earth. The Kingsbridge National Ice Center will offer nine year-round ice rinks, a 5,000-seat arena, and major hockey and skating events. Former Rangers star Mark Messier and Olympic figure skater Sarah Hughes have signed on as two of the center's public faces.

Backers say they'll devote 50,000 square feet to community uses -- great for introducing big-city kids to the demanding sports of skating and hockey. Promoters predict the place will draw more than 2 million visitors annually.

So why the Bronx? Why not the Bronx? The armory is a unique, landmarked space in the heart of America's largest regional economy and media epicenter. Though an earlier plan for a $310-million shopping complex in the building foundered in a nasty living-wage fight, the ice center is a strong backup and far less loaded with political tripwires.

As DiNapoli notes, challenges remain in the borough. Unemployment and poverty rates are still too high and educational attainment is still too low. But the renaissance is under way -- and that's extraordinary news.