The City Council will examine a deal today that the Bloomberg administration struck with a major developer to convert the dilapidated Bronx Terminal Market into a shopping and recreation mecca.

The agreement has been denounced by vendors and by some council members because it was not open to competitive bidding. Several council members, including the speaker, Gifford Miller, have also requested more information about the eviction of 23 vendors, some of whom are third- or fourth-generation merchants at the site.

The vendors have banded together and filed suit against the city for bypassing the standard approval process, and against the market’s new leaseholder, the Related Companies, which ordered them to vacate by the end of last March. That order was put on hold pending the outcome of the suit.

Opponents of the deal have also questioned the relationship between the administration and Related. The real estate firm is headed by Stephen Ross – a close friend of the deputy mayor for economic development, Daniel Doctoroff, and one of six developers who joined in the bid by the New York Jets, which was backed by the Bloomberg administration, to buy development rights at Manhattan’s West Side rail yards.

“All kinds of alternative visions for the site were never entertained,” a lobbyist for small businesses, Richard Lipsky, said. “These people were an afterthought.” Mr. Lipsky is spokesman for the Bronx Terminal Market Merchant Preservation Association.

The president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, Andrew Alper, who is scheduled to testify today at a joint council hearing of the Contracts Committee and the Small Business Committee, has maintained the city violated no rules and the new market project will provide the shot in the arm needed to transform an industrial area into a hub of economic activity and jobs.

A spokesman for the corporation, Michael Sherman, said yesterday the deal was expected to provide 5,000 permanent and construction jobs and roughly $400 million in new investment in the now-blighted area.

He also said that having Related buy out the 99-year lease the city had with the former landlord, the Buntzman family, was a win for the city and the borough. That lease, signed in 1972, was the source of bitter disputes and litigation for years. The city complained that the market had “fallen into terrible disrepair,” as Mr. Sherman put it, and the Buntzmans charged that the city abdicated its responsibility for infrastructure improvements.

“This has been a problem that has spanned 30 years now,” Mr. Sherman said.

The city installed Related as the leaseholder and the project developer responsible for constructing a $394 million esplanade, a shopping center, and a park – together called the Gateway Center – at the site, which is near Yankee Stadium. Mr. Sherman said the project itself would be subject to standard land-use approval requirements.

Many elected officials representing the Bronx, including the borough president, Adolfo Carrion, a Democrat, have come out in favor of the project. Some officials have questioned whether the merchants were being fairly compensated but still want to see the market razed to make way for new construction.

“I’m 110% in favor of the project,” the council’s majority leader, Joel Rivera of the Bronx, said.

“If you look at the proposal that EDC has brought to the table, it’s phenomenal. It truly revitalizes that whole entire strip,” he said.

Mr. Lipsky said, however, that unilaterally installing Related as the landlord was unjust.

“It was a way for the city to avoid a competitive bid on the site and to get favored-nation status for Related affirmed again in the city,” he said.

He acknowledged that the support in the Bronx would make it difficult to block the deal. His primary concern, he said, was getting the community more benefits, protecting the merchants, and ensuring more transparency. The transparency issue has dogged the administration before, most notably on the West Side stadium proposal the mayor was pushing.

“We’re trying to show that this was an unfair deal that uses millions of public dollars and reeks of favoritism,” Mr. Lipsky said.

Among elected officials, a leading critic of the deal has been Council Member Hiram Monserrate, Democrat of Queens.

The Bloomberg administration has offered a total of $8 million to the vendors for relocating expenses – an average of nearly $350,000 for each business. Vendors said that the amount is insufficient and that they want to reopen at a single location, rather than at scattered sites.

The city and the state are expected to provide Related with $80 million in Liberty Bonds and tax breaks. The city has also said it will repay the developer’s $42.5 million loan should the deal collapse. That, Mr. Sherman said, is simply the money Related paid to buy out the existing lease. Others said it provided Related with a sweetheart development deal devoid of market risk.

Asked last night to respond, a spokesman for Related, Lee Silberstein of the public-relations firm the Marino Organization, said: “This is a property that has been in a state of disinvestment for 80 years … and as a result the people of the Bronx have suffered.”

Mr. Silberstein also said none of the vendors are operating with leases.

Those expected to testify at today’s hearing include Mr. Alper, Mr. Carrion, officials from Related, and some of the merchants, as well as urban planners from Columbia University, who have drafted relocation plans for vendors.

Mr. Sherman said two of the 23 developers had already negotiated agreements with the city, while three others were in discussions with the city. The remaining vendors have not had contact with the city development corporation, the spokesman said.