MONEY'S RACING IN FOR ARMORY SPORTS

When it rains, it pours for the Park Slope Armory.

This spring, Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council pledged $500,000 toward a plan by the nonprofit group Take the Field to turn the long-underused armory into a year-round community sports center.

And last month, Borough President Marty Markowitz set aside $50,000 from his budget to study ways to reuse large parts of the former National Guard home that have sat vacant for years. Markowitz earmarked an additional $500,000 for the armory in next year's capital budget.

Advocates of Take the Field's sportsplex plan cheered the funding for the fledgling project. But supporters ques-tioned why Markowitz decided to fund a new study rather than support a plan already backed by the mayor and Council.
Bloomberg set aside $250,000 for the project in this year's budget. Councilman Bill de Blasio (D-Park Slope) put up the other $250,000.
"We're trying to move ahead into construction as quickly as possible," said Richard Kahan, president of Take the Field, co-founded by Giants co-owner Robert Tisch to renovate school athletic fields across the city.
The castlelike 14th Regiment Armory, on Eighth Ave., between 14th and 15th Sts., houses a homeless shelter and 14 veterans organizations.
Those uses would not be disturbed under the group's plan, which seeks to convert its century-old drill floor into an indoor track with four sports courts. The center would be available for school kids during the day and for community members at night and on the weekends.
Happy for help
"We're more than happy to have the assistance of the borough president's office," said Tyquana Henderson of de Blasio's office. "But we don't want to have money going all over the place. We all want to be together in the end."
Kahan said the project needs about $10 million for its first phase. The group, which also aims to overhaul the Bed-ford-Atlantic Armory in Bedford-Stuyvesant, is working to secure additional funding from private sources and the state.
Officials from Markowitz's office said yesterday they have been impressed by Take the Field's proposal - but they said questions still need to be addressed, such as the project's feasibility and who would oversee the center's programs and upkeep.


Courtesy of the NY Daily News
August 13, 2002, Tuesday

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A Bold New Rebuilding Plan Grows in Brooklyn

Brooklyn’s notorious Bedford-Atlantic armory — reputed to be the city’s most dangerous homeless shelter — will soon be transformed into a recreational facility, according to one of New York City’s best-known real estate developers.

Richard Kahan, the president and co-founder of Take the Field, a public-private venture that rebuilds athletic facilities at public schools throughout city, has drawn up plans for the armory renovation.

Mr. Kahan told a gathering of about 50 residents in Crown Heights that his organization plans to raise $14 million in public and private funds that will be used to transform the five-story armory building from a 350-bed shelter to a mixed-use facility that will continue to house homeless people but primarily serve as a base for local students and sports leagues. The project, he said, would be part of a new program, the Armory Initiative, to be operated by Take the Field.

Once funding has been secured and detailed architectural plans have been drawn, “we think we can build this in 9 to 12 months,” said Mr. Kahan, who was chairman of the Battery Park City Authority and the New York State Urban Development Corporation. The project, he said, is an extension of his organization’s mission to bring the benefits of sports to city schoolchildren. “This isn’t just an issue of where the kids will play,” he said. “This is an issue about what kinds of lives these kids are going to have.”


Courtesy of the New York Sun (Read the full article here)

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