Environmental review delays $1.18B Belmont Park arena project construction

Officials with Empire State Development hope they can issue their final environmental impact statement on the proposed $1.18 billion Belmont Park arena project by the end of June, but doing so would push the start of any construction into the summer, Long Island Business News reported. The organization’s board also voted to extend the contract of the review firm AKRF through September 2020, with the project’s developers being asked to pay for the extension. Those developers, who operate under the moniker New York Arena Partners, include the Oak View Group, Sterling Equities and the Scott Malkin Group. The developers had hoped to break ground in May so the National Hockey League’s New York Islanders could play their 2021 season at the arena. (The Islanders returned to Nassau County in December after a few years at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.) The project, when complete, will have a 19,000-seat arena, 250-room hotel and a 435,000-square-foot retail village. Empire State Development received more than 2,000 letters opposed to the project, which has made finalizing the environmental impact statement difficult, officials said. [LIBN]