A view of the Armory from Kingsbridge RoadThe second big piece of news is about the two big annex buildings on the north side of the Kingsbridge Armory.
Last night, Councilman Oliver Koppell gleefully told the audience at Community Board 7 (which includes the Armory in its geographical area) that the state had taken another giant step toward relocating the two state military units (currently housed in the Armory) into the recently vacated Muller Armed Forces Reserve Center in Wakefield (555 E. 238th St.).
A letter from the New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs, addressed to Ernie Padron, who is the Economic Development Corporation's project manager for the Armory project and, apparently, for the Muller facility redevelopment (the Department of Defense handed the facility over to the city for redevelopment and the EDC is, for all intents and purposes, handling it for the city), was for "official notice of intent" on behalf of the state military to "secure occupancy rights" to the Muller facility, which will "allow for the relocation of the current National Guard and New York Guard units" currently stationed at the Armory.
That's a mouthful, but the bottom line, according to Koppell, is that the Armory's annex buildings will soon be vacated and hopefully filled with schools to ease the area's severe overcrowding problems.
Koppell said he'd been in contact with the mayor's office about putting schools there and that they'd indicated that they were "positively inclined" to do so.
