New York Islanders’ Belmont Park arena bid approved, per report

The New York Islanders’ bid to construct a brand new 18,000-seat arena at Belmont Park has been approved by the state, reports Newsday’s Jim Baumbach. The move will allow the team to eventually leave behind Barclays Center, where it has played since leaving Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in 2015.

The Islanders have been competing for the opportunity to build a new facility in Belmont Park with Major League Soccer’s New York City FC. Both sides submitted proposals to the state several months ago, and an announcement of the decision is expected at the racetrack Wednesday.

It’s a day that hockey fans in New York have been waiting a long time for, partially because it has major implications for the team’s chances of re-signing superstar center John Tavares.

The Islanders’ proposal “includes an 18,000-seat, year-round arena that would host 150 events annually as well as 435,000-square feet of space for retail, a hotel with 200 to 250 rooms and a 10,000-square foot ‘innovation center’ that would be developed with resident input.”

NYCFC’s bid featured “a 26,000-seat open-air stadium in addition to 400,000 square-feet of space for retail, a 5.2-acre community park and a 2-acre soccer facility.”

The NHL franchise has been looking for a new home ever since it arrived in Brooklyn. Barclays Center was originally designed as the home of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, and adapting it to host NHL games proved to be a major challenge that was never really solved.

Eventually it seems the Islanders decided the solution to their problems was to try to find a new home, and the Belmont Park project emerged as a feasible possibility to allow the team to leave Barclays Center. State approval of the plan moves the team another step closer to having the stable long-term home it’s sought for years.