Dive Brief:

• The city of New York has signed a seven-year lease extension with the massive produce market at Hunts Point in the Bronx.
• The move puts an end -- albeit a temporary one -- to the long-running debate over whether or not the world's largest produce market would relocate to New Jersey.
• The city cut the rent that the Hunts Points Terminal Produce Market pays from $4.5 million to $4 million per year.

Dive Insight:

Hunts Point is one of those love-it-and-hate-it things about New York that makes the city such a challenging place to live and work. The market is a massive, hideous mix of dangerous and run-down buildings, millions of crates of food and a never-ending line of trucks. It sits behind imposing, barbed-wire covered walls. It's commonly mistaken for a prison. But Hunts Point provides some 3,000 jobs -- and it provides those jobs in one of the most poverty-stricken communities in America. And it's impossible to imagine New York's restaurants and retail stores functioning without it. Besides, as anyone who has been around the market for awhile can tell you, the place is better than it used to be.

So we're thrilled that the Bloomberg administration managed to close this deal on its last day running the city. Here's hoping that the new administration of Bill de Blasio can now strike a deal to bring much-needed improvements to the facility.