New York Calls Off Belmont Development

Four years after the administration of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo began floating ideas for re-developing a large, unused parcel at Belmont Park, state officials Dec. 9 called off a long-stalled bidding process for the site.

The state's Empire State Development Corp., the administration's main economic development agency, notified four bidders it has ceased the request-for-proposal process for development at the property, Long Island's Newsday reported Friday.

The most ambitious plan for the two parcels totaling 36 acres near the track and grandstand was for a 25,000-seat stadium for the New York Cosmos, the financially ailing North American Soccer League franchise that reports said this week is ceasing operations. The team had pitched a plan for the Belmont site for a stadium, hotel, nine restaurants, and more than 300,000 square feet of retail and entertainment space.

That's all out now, Newsday reported, quoting a state official that the Belmont RFP was scuttled "in order to consider economic development and job creation opportunities beyond the scope of the original request.''

What precisely that might be is uncertain, though Newsday over the summer  reported the New York Islanders National Hockey League team was considering an arena plan for the Belmont site. The team had been located in Nassau County, but relocated last year to the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn. Whether the NHL team could locate at the site without a new RFP process commencing is uncertain.

The Belmont RFP process by the state began in 2012, the same year Cuomo led a successful effort for a state takeover of the board of the New York Racing Association, whose track operations include Belmont. That was to have been a three-year reorganization period, but the governor this year demanded a number of conditions in return for NYRA's return to private hands. Legislators called the items poison pills and killed the effort, forcing another year of state control of NYRA until at least sometime in 2017.

The scrapping of the four-year Belmont RFP process does come, however, less than a month before Cuomo is to deliver his 2017 State of the State and budget address. The governor has often used such annual speeches to announce major real estate and economic development-related proposals, such as in 2012, when he announced North America's largest convention center would be located on the grounds of Aqueduct Racetrack. That idea did not come to fruition.