Belmont Park Islanders Arena Project - Upd 6/7 Construction ongoing, sched open for 2021-22 season

LadyStanley

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Sep 22, 2004
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Sin City


Paywall. And now, it's one of the projects on hold. Construction halted 3/27.

“If construction restarts within a reasonable period, we expect to maintain our schedule and for the arena to be open for the 2021-22 NHL season,” Richard Browne, Sterling Project Development managing partner, said in a statement quoted by The New York Post.
 

JiggsNY

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Sep 14, 2016
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What Islanders Fans Need To Know About Parking And The LIRR At UBS Arena - NY Sports Day

"Once fans arrive at the new Elmont Station, they can either take electric shuttle buses over to UBS Arena or they can take an approximate ten-minute walk via a covered entertainment walkway wired for sound that will connect the Elmont Station with the plaza at the arena.
“If it’s an Islanders game, you’ll hear pre-game and post-game,” said Leiweke. “If it’s a concert, we’ll tap into music of the radio station for that artist. We’ll make that an adventure. It’s 9 minutes and 40 seconds from the Long Island Railroad station to right here.”"​


Can someone who understands this a bit better explain to me? It says the walk from the train station is a ten min walk or hop on a shuttle bus. But I thought the belmont station is just steps away from the arena? Ik they are building a new station on the main rail line for elmont, but are trains not going to be running to the belmont stop?
 
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JiggsNY

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Sep 14, 2016
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Having trouble finding it, but they are going to build a parking garage on the other side of the road, and the garage will have the same looking light beacons on the top corners, which will give a cool look.

I know the retail has been downsized and who knows when that might even happen. My biggest worry is the hotel. I hope plans haven't changed for that, becuase having a hotel steps from the arena would do so much to secure big events for the arena, like the draft, all star game, or even a world juniors/ U18s would be my dream.
 

PJGooch

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Aug 2, 2005
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What Islanders Fans Need To Know About Parking And The LIRR At UBS Arena - NY Sports Day

"Once fans arrive at the new Elmont Station, they can either take electric shuttle buses over to UBS Arena or they can take an approximate ten-minute walk via a covered entertainment walkway wired for sound that will connect the Elmont Station with the plaza at the arena.
“If it’s an Islanders game, you’ll hear pre-game and post-game,” said Leiweke. “If it’s a concert, we’ll tap into music of the radio station for that artist. We’ll make that an adventure. It’s 9 minutes and 40 seconds from the Long Island Railroad station to right here.”"​


Can someone who understands this a bit better explain to me? It says the walk from the train station is a ten min walk or hop on a shuttle bus. But I thought the belmont station is just steps away from the arena? Ik they are building a new station on the main rail line for elmont, but are trains not going to be running to the belmont stop?

The Belmont Park station is only accessible to eastbound trains coming from the city. Anyone arriving on westbound trains from Long Island would have to use the new Elmont stop since it's on the main line.

With that said, I don't really remember what the status of the Belmont Park station is -- if it's going to be used at all or not.
 

oknazevad

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Dec 12, 2018
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From my understanding, the LIRR is planning on running some extra shuttle trains from Jamaica to the Belmont Park station on event days, with the possibility of trains directly from Penn Station if the event is during off-peak periods. (There is ZERO spare capacity at Penn during peak periods. The whole "busiest train station in the Western Hemisphere" thing.) Possibly even some directly from Grand Central Terminal once the new LIRR portion of Grand Central opens late next year.
But, as noted, the Belmont Park station is on a spur branch that can only be accessed off the LIRR Main Line by eastbound trains, as the junction is to the west of the track (and arena). So even though Belmont Park station is pretty much right next to the racetrack's grandstand and the arena, it's not going to be useful to people arriving from points further east on Long Island, who make a sizable part of the Islanders' fan base. For those folks, and to fill a gap between local stations on the main line, a new Elmont station on the other side of the racetrack is being constructed, which will allow Nassau County riders to take the train to Isles games. (No converting the Belmont Park station to be a through station can't be done; the tracks would have to go through the racetrack, destroying it.)
In some ways it will actually help with post-game station crowding, too, as the Long Island-bound passengers will go to a separate station from the NYC-bound passengers (though the latter could also use the Elmont station).
 

BKIslandersFan

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Sep 29, 2017
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From my understanding, the LIRR is planning on running some extra shuttle trains from Jamaica to the Belmont Park station on event days, with the possibility of trains directly from Penn Station if the event is during off-peak periods. (There is ZERO spare capacity at Penn during peak periods. The whole "busiest train station in the Western Hemisphere" thing.) Possibly even some directly from Grand Central Terminal once the new LIRR portion of Grand Central opens late next year.
But, as noted, the Belmont Park station is on a spur branch that can only be accessed off the LIRR Main Line by eastbound trains, as the junction is to the west of the track (and arena). So even though Belmont Park station is pretty much right next to the racetrack's grandstand and the arena, it's not going to be useful to people arriving from points further east on Long Island, who make a sizable part of the Islanders' fan base. For those folks, and to fill a gap between local stations on the main line, a new Elmont station on the other side of the racetrack is being constructed, which will allow Nassau County riders to take the train to Isles games. (No converting the Belmont Park station to be a through station can't be done; the tracks would have to go through the racetrack, destroying it.)
In some ways it will actually help with post-game station crowding, too, as the Long Island-bound passengers will go to a separate station from the NYC-bound passengers (though the latter could also use the Elmont station).
They should run extra shuttle trains to Belmont from Brooklyn.
 

oknazevad

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Dec 12, 2018
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They should run extra shuttle trains to Belmont from Brooklyn.
Not a bad idea, though I don't know if there would be that much ridership.
There's also the issue of track capacity at Jamaica. As part of the East Side Access project to bring the LIRR to Grand Central tracks were reconfigured and a new platform was constructed with the idea of turning all Jamaica-to-Brooklyn trains into a dedicated shuttle, but MTA/LIRR brass have walked that back following major pushback from riders. Turns out a lot of the riders of the Atlantic Branch are people who work in downtown Manhattan coming from points east and specifically go to Atlantic Terminal and catch the subway there to avoid having to go to the eternally overcrowded Penn Station, and there not happy with always having to transfer (or the fact that all Atlantic Terminal shuttles would be from the new platform that requires going up and over instead of just walking across the platform).
 
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JiggsNY

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Sep 14, 2016
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New York
"With the sub-10-minute walk from the station to the arena, designers curated the walkway, adding the ability to run programming throughout the footpath—whether a pre-game or post-game hockey show or music from that night’s concert. "
Curious to how this interactive footpath will be set up. The dirt triangle in the top left is where the station will be, I'm guessing it will have to go beneath Cross Island Parkway? Not a lot of room there wonder how they will do it.

View media item 9335
 

oknazevad

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Dec 12, 2018
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Actually, the new station is going to be just off the top edge of that photo on the other side of the Cross Island, not in the middle of the wye. The more recent aerial Google Maps has up now even shows the beginning of construction (along with the Arena).
 

JiggsNY

Registered User
Sep 14, 2016
676
675
New York
Actually, the new station is going to be just off the top edge of that photo on the other side of the Cross Island, not in the middle of the wye. The more recent aerial Google Maps has up now even shows the beginning of construction (along with the Arena).
Ahh that would make more sense. I’ll check that out.
 

StreetHawk

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Sep 30, 2017
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I am loving the way they designed this arena. It's gonna definitely be one of the best, if not the best, arena in the NHL.
pretty much each new arena looks around and takes things that they like from other arenas and incorporates it into theirs if it makes sense.

Be interesting to see a comparison between the Isles vs the Kraken's arena. Brand new vs a Reno down to the studs and roof.
 

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