Monday, December 11, 2017

Soccer or hockey stadium may be headed to Belmont


From CBS 2:

What does the future hold for the vacant lots at Belmont Park?

More than 200 of its neighbors went to Elmont High School on Sunday to find out what two New York sports teams have in mind. As CBS2’s Hazel Sanchez reported, most locals weren’t very happy about what they heard.

“Like it or not, the residents of this area are getting a stadium, and the congestion is going to be mind boggling,” one man said.

“It’s going to be nightmare,” another person added.

The New York City Football Club, partly owned by the New York Yankees, hopes to transform part of the property north of Hempstead Turnpike into a 26,000 seat open-air stadium for its professional soccer team.

Meanwhile, the New York Islanders want to turn that property into a world class sports and entertainment facility, including an 18,000 seat arena for the professional hockey team.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Omg.... Just imagine the traffic over there if this happens? Its not going to be pretty.

Ms. Tsouris said...

The Cross Island, with its narrow lanes and lack of even lane lines, is an old road that can barely handle the traffic that uses it now. What is their proposal to improve traffic flow in that area?

Anonymous said...

They are nuts because the general American public doesn't gives a shit about soccer let alone schlep out to some Elmont slum to watch it. Unless they drive in which case unlike horse people soccer fans are IMMIGRANT DRUNKS (most anyway) who will kill 100s on the parkways, major accidents. Days soccer would run would be total disaster for the public, EMS and police on Long Island and Eastern Queens.
NOT WORTH IT !
The pols & people on Long Island will never have this crap, they will fight it like WWIII

Anonymous said...

"Cross Island, with its narrow lanes"
No shit !! And no room to expand them without replacing every overpass including major Railroad lines. Nassau country will never allow this project, it be chaos. These morons are in dreamland, are the corporate ring leaders on this from Europe by any chance ?

TommyR said...

Quote from the article:
"“The people who make it, the people who sat on the podium — they’re all business people. Who’s it going to help? It’s going to help them, because they’re in business. Everything else is a byproduct,” a man added. “It’s not going to help the residents. We’re not going to see much except a lot of congestion.”

While both proposals promise to bring hundreds of permanent jobs, some residents say they aren’t the kind of opportunities the community needs.

“Real jobs and real wages – not minimum wage jobs, not retail jobs. Kids aren’t looking to go to college to learn how to work in a restaurant. They’re going to college to learn how to get STEM and healthcare jobs,” said another man."

So what do you with big empty lots, then? It's a lost opportunity cost to let them sit there, vacant and unused. The Empire State Development corp is responsible for the following (https://esd.ny.gov/subsidiaries) including a number of subsidiaries dating from the 1980's that essentially transformed brownfields into ... "glass"-fields, for lack of a better term. Eh...not the most ideal outcome, but it's hard to argue that those areas should've been better off REMAINING blighted.

Hey "WWIII" Anon, let's hope you don't get run down by one of those IMMIGRANT DRUNKS, eh? Lol...like belligerent hockey fans are much better. It comes down to a "white" sport vs a "brown" sport, but you can't really argue soccer isn't also a white man's game in the present day: the wonderfully pale Brits, Eastern Europeans, Spaniards, etc LOVE to play it. Or are they not white? Harr..harr..ultimately sports is a useful outlet, like opioids, TV, religion, and talk-radio for keeping the unwashed masses placated and unthinking.

The NIMBY's in the area need to COORDINATE and COGITATE (hard, I know) to come up with a USEFUL ALTERNATIVE to the proposed stadium-off btw NYCFC and the Islander's. My money's on the Islanders eventually winning any bids, if it's to be a sporting arena.

Crappy, this was also a useful (and much more detailed) write-up (from Newsday..of all places):
https://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/belmont-park-redevelopment-islanders-soccer-1.15370380

Quote,
"The hearing at Elmont Memorial High School represented the first time the teams’ ownership groups publicly released specifics about the bids to redevelop 43 acres of state-owned land that both previously submitted to Empire State Development.

Five of the area’s elected officials hosted the meeting. It included a question-and-answer session with a moderator reading pre-submitted queries from an audience of about 200.

Before the session, about 20 people protested development plans, saying they want education, research or technology centers built that would bring high-paying jobs to the area.

Both teams’ plans call for opening the Long Island Rail Road’s Belmont Park station year-round. The teams would build north of Hempstead Turnpike, adjacent to the train station.

The Islanders partners include Sterling Project Development, a real estate firm run by the Mets’ Wilpon family, and Oak View Group, an arena development company partially funded by Madison Square Garden.

“We are very thoughtful developers and we don’t build and then move on,” said Richard Browne, managing partner for Sterling. “We build where we live and we keep on with it and manage our property like we manage our homes.”

Both would incorporate outlet stores into their retail components, according to the proposals. Neither presentation included costs or financing."

Make of that what you will. Attracting tech or education and research could be great...their constituents should then put pressure on the relevant reps to achieve these aims.

Anonymous said...

I'm a longtime Bellerose resident and don't want to see this, but-- the reality is that the huge parking lots at Belmont are only filled with horse fans once per year for the Belmont Stakes. Other times they are rented to park fleet cars, trucks and construction equipment. A stadium of some sort, connected to the the Belmont LIRR, is better than where this situation could go-- the lots sold to a residential developer of cheap apartments and multi-family housing. It's not going to stay the way it is for the next 50 years, so pick the best of the bad options. C'est la vie.

TommyR said...

good take, anon.

Gary W said...

When does the casino go in?

Anonymous said...

Efreeti:

Get rid of that fucking jumping monkey. I never read your stuff 'cause he's so fucking annoying. Do yourself and us the favor.. . please.

Anonymous said...

Long live the Monkey !

Anonymous said...

Make it cheap sec 8 apartments because those people dont work anyway.
This way, the developers & flippers will leave the good parts of Elmont and Franklyn Square alone !
Soccer fans are friggan garbage in all colors & creeds, the effing worst lowest of the lowest sports shit on the planet! ANYTHING but a stadium. Most people have no clue how bad the accidents & traffic jams were when horse racing was going on. And those were sober people !!

Anonymous said...

Why are the Islanders seeking to relocate? Isn't the Barclays Center good enough for them? If anything, send them back to the Nassau Coliseum, with its ample parking. This team seems quite restless. As soon as it secures a home, it's ready to move to another one.

Anonymous said...

Efreeti Said: 'It comes down to a "white" sport vs a "brown" sport'

No. It has absolutely nothing to do with that, never has, and never will. Only in your 'zero sum' world does every single motherfucking issue boil down to racism/sexism.

In your world, where the democratic party's insatiable lust for revenue and development is shielded by a social justice hysteria, everyone who opposes a development must be reconfigured as either racist or sexist, no matter how justified the persons opposition is.

It's a strategy: With the public's attention rigidly fixated on racism/sexism accusations, our communities collapse all around us. Angry about a Queens neighborhood infested with prostitution? Racist! Did you get hurled into half naked, man-hating feminist on a jam packed train? Sexist!

All a developer has to do is align himself with a democrat and shout "racism" or "sexism" to make all resistance disappear. This is the new democratic party. Luxury towers replace 300 year old neighborhoods. Malls replace parkland. Sports stadiums get built with public funds. Corporations cash in wildly while our diseased culture and pathological media consume our attention with irrelevant, improvable accusations. While we ponder non-issues like gender segregated subway cars (yes, this is a real thing), micro aggressions, trigger warnings and virtue signaling - REBNY is rummaging through Queens like it was an Oklahoma land grab.

I am sick of racism accusations being hurled at Queens Crap. It's a public forum. You can find more egregious examples of overt racism on google, youtube and facebook without ever thinking of labeling those sites as "racist". But here, with our dwindling population of folks with municipal pride, I guess it's an easy target.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GapUEKYLE1o&t=720s

TommyR said...

@last Anon^ above...I actually agree with you, and most "racist" issues to me seem overblown:

I don't care one way or another about the context of race or racism in this particular issue - my comment was in response to an earlier Anon throwing a tantrum about "immigrant drunks" and basically telling us how he really felt, lol. How did you miss that, eh - convenient, very convenient of you. As if Hockey fans never drink or get rowdy?

" Unless they drive in which case unlike horse people soccer fans are IMMIGRANT DRUNKS (most anyway) who will kill 100s on the parkways, major accidents. "

Some of the old-timers on these forums sound ridiculous, always wringing their hands over this or that non-white group's intrusion/presence in their precious little 'burbs. It's cuz they're old, feel powerless, and have taken the last refuge of the fearful, I guess. Or do you simply ignore all those QueensCrap comments rife with white-fear posts FULL of anxiety over those scary, scary brown (and Chinese!) people, because they're "coded" properly? C'mon, seriously. :P

I consider myself a realist and can simply understand how both Dems and Repubniks capitalize on TRIBALISM because most people are TOO STUPID to think beyond skin-color when considering the many sides of any issue.

My contention is that developers of all stripes - Jews, Russians, Chinese - and yes, the oldest group at it, slick-rick Whities, are basically unopposed in molesting quieter parts of the borough in their never-ending lust for more money, so I agree with you there.

Anonymous said...

>move in next to a major stadium
>complain about traffic

Every damn time.

Also, that monkey is cute, don't mess with it.

If Anon doesn't like the monkey, use adblock to block that specific image, and you'll never have to see it again.

TommyR said...

^ha, thanks, appreciate the vote of confidence. Honestly if like every single named poster complained about it, or just Crappy hisself, I'd change it. It's just a little animated monkey, hardly worth getting upset about, imho.

Also agreed - people who live next to highways and the like should not complain about the noise. I bought my house at the corner of two dead-ends, with a commuter rail right behind it (incidentally the highway's near by, too). I knew what I was getting into and appreciate the positives of its position more than than the noise (which just sounds like rushing wind to me, anyway): meaning, only one neighbor, and relative isolation given how close I am to the center of things. It would be great if the train co. ever put up a sound wall or the like, but I'm not ranting for it.

ron s said...

An important issue mentioned above is why must teams constantly build new stadiums with costs passed to the public? The Islanders didn't like old Nassau Coliseum so Nassau built a new one. But the Islanders don't play there. They play in Brooklyn but don't like it there. So we need to build another ice arena to make them happy? Why?
Similar wastes of money were the destruction of Shea to build Citifield 500 feet away, and the destruction of old Yankee Stadium to build new Yankee Stadium 500 feet away. Don't forget the brand new Giants Stadium for 8 games plus Jets for 8 games a year. What a waste.

Make the extra Belmont land into a park before money grubbing developers use it "for the public good" (their own profit).

Anonymous said...

I stayed at a house right next to the commuter tracks. The train itself didn't bother me, but it inexplicable horn tooting late at night woke me up repeatedly.

Anonymous said...

Well I guess the Islanders aren't filling the seats at the Barclay Center, so they have to find another home...as far as the NYFC...I wonder who is going to line Virginia Joe's pockets to get this deal through....

Anonymous said...

"...old-timers on these forums sound ridiculous"

Stop age shaming.

" (Their) always wringing their hands over this or that non-white group's intrusion/presence in their precious little 'burbs"

- Post-war, affordable tract housing was spawned in Nassau (Levittown). Architecture of Queens housing is far more unique and worthy of protection. Of course, it will be all be ripped down soon, since post-war America is being re-imagined as a racist/sexist caste system. How convenient for REBNY to have this social justice shield. Also, many suburban whites migrated from places from East New York and Flatbush in the 70's.

No one is complaining about skin color. People are complaining about exploitative cultural trends (aka: prostitution spa's, gambling dens, tenement SRO's, blockbusting, rat poison signs on enormous green fences, overcrowding, lack of any form of restraint whatsoever, lack of respect for the history of these areas, Falun Dafa, etc.

"As if Hockey fans never drink or get rowdy?"

- Hockey fans are white nationalists. Ban hockey.

"slick-rick Whities"

-Slick Rick was black.

"you can't really argue soccer isn't also a white man's game in the present day"

-I can. And I would likely make the point in Flushing Meadows Park on any Sunday afternoon, where 100 acres of former greenspace transforms into 75 concurrent soccer games, turning the landscape into a mud bath.

"white-fear posts FULL of anxiety over those scary, scary brown (and Chinese!)"

- Chinese and "brown" people fled from oppression in their own countries, largely because of fear, and it can't be attributed to white people. So they get here and start blaming white people for oppression, after having just escaped oppression. Perhaps if areas like South Korea and Bangladesh hadn't been completely and utterly stripped of resources and space by Asians...

"ultimately sports is a useful outlet, like opioids"

- Heroin is a chemical, it's killing thousands of Americans, and it all comes in from Mexico. Thus the opioid epidemic is a chemical attack from a foreign country, eh? Glad you agree that we ought to secure our border when our country is attacked.

Anonymous said...

That monkey sucks. Back and forth, back and forth. It distracts from you message content. Do you see any other commentator over Crappy's 11 year history using that kind of distracting icon? Get rid of it. No one else uses such an annoying icon.

Anonymous said...

The monkey is not cute. It's annoying. It's also JUVENILE. Crappy, please get it off your site

Anonymous said...

Simple solution: NO GIFS.

Anonymous said...

Efreeti. You make very lucid comments and THEN you ruin it all with a childish image. C'mon, ditch the monkey.