Franchise Oversight Board grants final approval for Belmont Park arena

The New York Franchise Oversight Board on Tuesday approved a handful of resolutions related to a project to build a hockey arena for the New York Islanders on a parcel of the Belmont Park property, clearing the way for ground-breaking.

The resolutions included a transfer of the parcel of land underlying the project from the control of the Franchise Oversight Board to the Empire State Development Corp., a stage agency overseeing the project. The oversight board also approved provisions that will guarantee the terms of parking and easement agreements between the project’s backers and the New York Racing Association, which operates Belmont under an agreement expiring in 2033, regardless of the entity that operates the track.

The project includes the hockey arena plus a hotel and 350,000 square feet of retail space, built on property at Belmont that is currently used for excess parking. While the project’s backers had intended to begin construction earlier this summer, some approvals were delayed due to the complexity of the project and community concerns that required revisions to elements of the plan. Construction of the development is expected to take at least two years to complete.

To accommodate construction, NYRA moved up the start of its Saratoga meet by one week this year, and the association is expected to weigh additional accommodations next year. NYRA officials have expressed approval for the project and plan to work with the owners to capitalize on the development when it is complete, such as cross-marketing events at the two facilities.

The approval of the project also is likely to lead to a re-appraisal of the Belmont grandstand that could include plans for a massive renovation. That could require short- and long-term changes to the year-round New York racing circuit.

As part of a 2008 bankruptcy settlement with the state, NYRA transferred the deeds to its properties to New York, and the administrator of the deeds, for technical purposes, is the oversight board. Because of that, the oversight board’s approval was needed as part of the final step in the process.

The settlement granted NYRA a franchise on operating Belmont, Aqueduct, and Saratoga, for 25 years, at which point the agreement is expected to be reviewed. Provisions in that agreement also give the oversight board the power to recommend that the franchise agreement be nullified, in the event that the board rules that NYRA has violated certain criteria. The existence of that provision led to the oversight board approval of the guarantees for the parking and easement agreements.

The oversight board’s approvals of the resolutions came five weeks after the Empire State Development Corp. approved the environmental impact statement of the project at a meeting on Aug. 8, despite requests from a large number of local citizens and representatives to delay or amend the plans for the development. (The requests were made at a public meeting at which supporters of the project also spoke.)