The Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance (KARA) is gaining broader support as influential organizations throughout New York City - For A Better Bronx, Urban Agenda, Sustainable South Bronx, Nos Quedamos and the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health - have signed on to KARA's Community Benefit Principles to seek equitable development at the Kingsbridge Armory.

In joining with KARA, these organizations now become advocates for an enforceable Community Benefits Agreement that requires the developer, The Related Companies, to meet the community's educational. retail, entertainment, recreational, and service needs while providing living wage jobs to local residents.

"We joined KARA to support community efforts to ensure that any development of the Kingsbridge Armory is done in a manner that brings real benefits to the community and creates good jobs that provide family sustaining wages, paid benefits, and real pathways out of poverty for community members," said Mijin Cha, Director of Campaign Research for Urban Agenda.

Urban Agenda works to advocate for policies and programs grounded in action-oriented research and supported by strong coalitions of union, business, and community partners. Sustainable South Bronx is a community organization dedicated to Environmental Justice solutions through innovative, economically sustainable projects that are informed by community needs. Nos Quedamos is a non-profit community development corporation comprised of residents, homeowners, and business owners from the South Bronx. For A Better Bronx serves the South Bronx community by working for environmental justice and countering institutional racism. The New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, is a non-profit coalition of 200 local unions and more than 400 individual workers, physicians, lawyers and other health and safety activists - all dedicated to the right of every worker to a safe and healthful job. 

Richard Trumka, the newly elected President of the AFL-CIO, joined Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), clergy and community leaders in the Bronx, NY, today to highlight the need for responsible economic development.

“Economic development has to be about building communities and not just building profits for developers,” said AFL-CIO President Trumka at a meeting with community and labor leaders in Kingsbridge. “Too many developers see our communities as a place to turn a quick buck without returning anything of lasting value,” said Trumka. “We need to change that.”

“Economic development that creates jobs that keep people in poverty accomplishes nothing,” said RWDSU President Appelbaum. “What’s happening here in the Bronx reflects what we are fighting for across the country. We are creating a better approach to economic development; an approach that calls on developers to create living wage jobs, respect workers right to join a union and to give back to the communities where they operate. Especially when a developer is benefiting from public support like tax breaks and other incentives, that developer has an obligation to improve the lives of working families in our community.”

Trumka’s visit came as New York City considers plans by the Related Companies to develop the Kingsbridge Armory into the “Shops at the Armory” mall. After construction, Related’s plans would result in no full-time jobs, only low-wage part time jobs without benefits. Related’s plans would turn the Shops at the Armory into a poverty-wage center.

“This is our Armory and we will not allow it to be used solely as a profit center for Related,” said Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter, a leader of the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance (KARA), said as she met with Trumka and Appelbaum. “We need good jobs and better schools, not just more shopping options.” KARA is a coalition of unions, community groups, churches and small business owners advocating for living wage jobs, community space, recreational facilities and schools at the Armory.

Fred LeMoine, KARA member and Vice President of the Bronx Board of Business Agents, the Bronx branch of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York and vicinity, said, “Responsible development means sitting down with all the community stakeholders to make sure their needs are met. We stand with President Trumka and our labor and community partners today to make sure that when we build in the Bronx, or anywhere, we do it in a way that doesn’t just drain resources but provides real and lasting benefits.”

“I have been involved with the grassroots movement to redevelop the Armory for 13 years,” says Reverend Doctor Katrina Foster, Pastor of the Fordham Lutheran Church. “The support of our nation’s top labor leader is an affirmation of our core principle that everyone who works in the Armory has earned the right to a living wage, job security and unionization. This community asset can be transformed into an economic tool for our community and a profit maker for Related. These two things are not incompatible.”

Community Benefits Agreements have been negotiated in cities around the country with developers who would be receiving tax dollars and tax exemptions to help underwrite their projects. These agreements have helped developers build profitable projects while guaranteeing good jobs that pay living wages and create community spaces.

Seventeen clergy members and 400 congregants from seven denominations came out Wednesday night, September 9, to ask for God's intervention in their mission for justice and living wage jobs at the Kingsbridge Armory.

"We've been to the hearings, we're at the negotiating table with the developer pushing for good jobs and schools -- but tonight we bring it to a Higher Authority," said Rev. Doug Cunningham, Pastor of the New Day Church.

The evening was a powerful demonstration of the northwest Bronx community's support for KARA's demand that City officials require the Related Companies' to sign a binding Community Benefits Agreement that includes living wage jobs before the rezoning and sale of the Armory to the developer can be approved.

Members of congregations spoke from the heart of their own personal need for living wage jobs in one of the City's poorest neioghborhoods. Veronica Grumbs, a middle-aged Caribbean immigrant from Calvary United Methodist Church, said that, although she holds an accounting degree, she has not been able to find work. Jose Luis, a parishioner of St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church spoke of the threat that he and his co-workers at Stella D'Oro face if the bakery factory leaves the Bronx.

Then, Father Tom Lynch from Our Lady of Angels Church had the crowd raise their hands over the Armory and consecrate it, petitioning God to keep the community strong and guide the hearts of elected leaders to ensure good development.

Organized by KARA, the Evening of Prayer came just days after Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz announced that he would not support Related's plans to redevelop the Armory into a mall unless the developer signs a CBA that includes: living wage jobs, first source local hiring, protection of the right of retail workers to join a union without fear or intimidation, community and recreation space, and the exclusion of a big box grocery store.

Creston Ave Baptist Church's choir had the crowd crying out "hallelujah" and Minister Edwin Pierce from Unlimited Power of God Church instructed the people to do as David did by "picking up a stone tonight to take down a great enemy."

Rabbi Ari Weiss of Uri L'Tzedek Synagogue declared, "I am Jewish. I am an Orthodox Jew," and then told of how the Talmud commands that workers be paid a living wage. Then, the crowd silently joined hands in a circle as the shofar, a ram's horn, was blown again and again, with one long blast of awakening.

The evening ended with people dancing to gospel music, shouting out their prayers to God and joining together in what is now a popular northwest Bronx chant: "It's Our Armory, It's Our Armory!"