On the last day of the Bloomberg administration, city officials bought some time in their long-running effort to keep the Hunts Points Terminal Produce Market from leaving the Bronx for New Jersey or elsewhere.
New York City’s Economic Development Corporation announced on Tuesday that, after years of sometimes contentious negotiations, the market’s lease had been renewed for seven years. The agreement keeps the wholesale market and its 3,000 jobs in the South Bronx until June 2021. The market, which has operated since 1967, has an option to renew the lease for 10 years after that.
The agreement is a step toward developing a long-term plan to overhaul the market, which occupies more than 100 acres. The city agreed to reduce the maximum annual rent the market pays to $4 million from $4.5 million. In return, the market agreed to reduce the amount it can deduct from that rent for repairs it makes to its infrastructure to $1.5 million from $2.25 million annually.
Hunts Point is the world’s largest wholesale produce market. Thousands of refrigerated 18 wheelers from all over North America deliver fresh fruits and vegetables to the compound each week. The product is then distributed mostly on a regional basis, the nation’s most populated area.
By The New York Times