The Islanders’ UBS Arena next to Belmont Park
The new UBS Arena on the Belmont race Track property in Elmont, Long Island N.Y. is moving along towards its November opening for the National Hockey league team opening…The lawsuits are long gone….
And we now find that the race track facility will be upgraded also….
NY Governor Cuomo wanted and won this one…
When New York State regulators and health officials finally give the New York Racing Association a green light to allow the general public back inside its three racetracks, fans will see a Belmont Park they never could have envisioned a decade ago.
The last time fans were allowed on the grounds of Belmont Park, back on Oct. 27, 2019, there was a large fenced-in area in the track’s Red Parking Lot in front of the west end of the grandstand surrounded by rows of trucks and equipment.
What they will find when they return is that a large nondescript area of dirt has been transformed into a dazzling, state-of-art 17,000-seat arena, with its four walls and roof in place and a facade that perfectly complements the famed brick structure of the fabled Belmont Park grandstand.
“It was great that they designed the arena to complement our grandstand and facility,” said Glen Kozak, NYRA’s senior vice president of operations and capital projects. “It’s really nice to see and it says a lot of good things about the builders and developers.”
With an eye-catching shell and huge glass windows looking out on Hempstead Turnpike and smaller rows of windows circling the building now in place, there’s a bright and electric future on the horizon for a historic parcel of land in Elmont, N.Y. By October or November, as the bowl of the arena is completed with seating, and outdoor patios and landscaped walkways are added, what was first announced in 2017 will become a reality when the arena opens its doors and Belmont Park becomes the joint home of the horses who compete on the NYRA circuit and the National Hockey League’s New York Islanders….