Two years after Bronx leaders helped defeat a plan to develop the Kingsbridge Armory into a retail mall, citing concerns over wages, they are supporting a new push by the Bloomberg administration to develop the massive red-brick castle.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who was deeply frustrated by the earlier plan’s defeat, plans to trumpet the revived effort in his State of the City speech, which he is scheduled to deliver in the Bronx on Thursday. He will cite it as an attempt “to bring jobs to the most talked-about empty building in the Bronx” and describe the administration and its former adversaries as “putting aside our differences to do what’s best for the city,” according to a partial text of the speech provided by his office.

The City Council voted to reject a plan to redevelop the armory two years ago in the face of staunch opposition from the Bronx borough president, Ruben Diaz Jr., and the national Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. To the plan’s opponents, the project, which promised thousands of mostly low-wage jobs, crystallized what they saw as the administration’s disregard for working-class families. The critics refused to support the project unless the developer agreed to pay a “living wage” to all mall employees, but the proposed developer, Related, balked at that requirement.

The battle over the armory, a soaring structure in the northwest Bronx that has been vacant for more than a decade, was a bitter defeat for Mr. Bloomberg shortly after he won a third term in 2009. Mr. Bloomberg vetoed the Council’s rejection of the development proposal, but the Council overrode his veto. And as the armory has remained vacant, the Bronx — the city’s poorest borough — has suffered in tandem with the ailing national economy.