Hunts Point Market signs 3-year lease extension

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Wednesday that the Hunts Point Terminal Produce Market had extended its lease by three years. The deal will allow the city and the produce vendors to continue negotiating a long term contract that will include a $320 million renovation of the market.

The current lease expired on May 31, and the negotiations—which began nearly a year ago—went down to the wire. As part of the temporary arrangement, the produce vendors agreed to cease their negotiations with officials from New Jersey, who had been aggressively wooing the market to relocate.

Stephen Katzman, co-president of the market, said in a statement, “This proposal keeps us in the Bronx for at least the next three years and requires us to negotiate exclusively with the city for a term of nine months in hopes of coming to a long-term lease renewal.”

A coterie of city and New York state officials from Gov. Cuomo’s office were involved in the recent negotiations—and will continue discussions to try to keep the market in New York.

“It’s the first step in a long process,” said Matthew D’Arrigo, who runs one of the largest businesses in the market. “We have a lot to talk about and nine months will go very quickly.”

Much of the haggling is centered on how the cost of redeveloping the 43-year-old facility will be divided between the vendors, the city and the state.

In the meantime, a group within the market—which is comprised of 47 businesses that form a co-operative—would like to move to New Jersey. They say the city has taken them for granted over the past decades and they are fed up with the poor conditions at the market.

Mr. Bloomberg said in a statement that the market “generates billions of dollars in revenue for the city’s growing economy. We are more optimistic than ever that it will thrive[in the Bronx] for many more years come.”