Hockey legend Mark Messier crosschecked Mayor de Blasio with a lawsuit Tuesday alleging his administration conspired to kill a plan to develop the Kingsbridge Armory in The Bronx into the world’s largest ice-skating complex.
Messier and developer Ken Parker’s company KNIC accused the city’s Economic Development Corp. of breaching a contract ironed out during the final days of the Bloomberg administration in 2013 and “deliberately delay[ing]” construction of the $350 million project.
“We believe the lawsuit reveals conduct that has not only harmed our client, but also robbed the community of the many benefits of this transformational project,” said KNIC lawyer William A. Brewer III.
The 35-page suit, filed in Bronx Supreme Court, alleges that former EDC President Kyle Kimball conspired with three former KNIC business partners in 2014 in a failed bid give them control.
The three ex-partners – Jonathan Richter, Marcus Wignell and Jeff Spiritos – months later lost a separate legal battle to regain a stake of the project from Messier and Parker.
“It now appears that, while publicly pretending to cooperate with KNIC, EDC was secretly working to advance the private interests of the three favored individuals and other non-party co-conspirators to the detriment of KNIC, the Kingsbridge community, The Bronx, and the City of New York,” says the suit.
EDC enlisted the Department of Investigation to see if Parker had adequate financing before turning over the lease, the suit said.
After DOI determined he did, EDC then purposely tried to delay construction by holding the lease in escrow until Messier and Parker could raise $158 million to finance the project’s first phase, the suit alleged.
Messier told The Post last week the unexpected move made potential lenders reluctant to open their checkbooks since his team did not control the site.
They still raised $20 million privately and convinced Gov. Cuomo’s economic development arm, the Empire State Development Corp., to commit the remaining $138 million as a loan.
But even the state’s word wasn’t good enough for EDC, the suit said.
Messier and his team asked the court to order EDC to turn over the lease along with unspecified money damages.
In a statement, the agency responded:
NYCEDC has bent over backwards to support the Kingsbridge project through continued legal and operational challenges faced by the KNIC team. Any allegations to the contrary are totally unfounded. We remain committed to delivering this project for the people of The Bronx.”
