350 Old Country Road, Suite 205, Garden City, NY 11530
Bruce Ratner, the executive chairman for Forest City Ratner
Companies and developer of Brooklyn’s Barclay's Center, is encouraging Nassau
County residents to take a fresh new look at the Nassau Veterans Memorial
Coliseum. Ratner believes his
development group is the right one to take on this task of making the coliseum better than ever before.
Ratner’s Barclay's Center will eventually become the new home
of the New York Islanders in 2015 leaving the Coliseum to be turned into
something else. Ratner’s vision is to
turn it from a national hockey league arena into a smaller entertainment
center, which he says will host top talents and be the centerpiece of a
district that will include restaurants, and outdoor amphitheater and a more
intimate live music club. Ratner’s
aspirations are to give the Coliseum a more aesthetic makeover that will draw
the eye to its beauty from outside as well as in. Ratner faces competing bids by Madison Square
Garden, Blumenfeld Development Group and New York Sports LLC, all which have
presented their plans before a panel of 17 Nassau business leaders who will
assist the county in selecting the winning proposal. Ratner, who advised the county on development possibilities
for the site after Charles Wang, owner of the Islanders, announced the team’s departure,
is partnering with Brooklyn Nets majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov, Jay-Z’s
company Roc Nation, New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys joint food service
venture Legends, the entertainment company Live Nation, financial services
company Guggenheim Partners and Barclays Center architectural firm SHoP. Brett
Yormark, Barclays Center and Brooklyn Nets CEO, has termed the group a “dream
team.”
Their plans
call for a reduction in seating capacity from 17,686 to about 13,000, an
aesthetic makeover of the interior and exterior, building of a monument to
Nassau’s military veterans and more than 300 annual sports, music and
entertainment events. Renovations are
expected to take at least 15 months and cost over $89 million. Further development will include renovations
of the existing convention center and the building of a 2,000 seat theater, a
cinema and an outdoor amphitheater which is projected to cost an additional
$140 million. Ratner wishes this center
to be for everyone to enjoy and plans to host many free events in the
amphitheater. The focus of the Coliseum
will change and would be the home to no major sports team, although the
Islanders are expected to play at least 6 regular season games there per year.
Ratner’s
group is projecting great economic benefits for the county should his bid be
accepted, including the creation of 2,500 full and part time jobs, plus 1,300
job-years of construction work during the building phase of the project. Ratner’s group as well as the other three
competing developers has said that they will not seek any public funding for
the project. This is a great project
that overall can benefit the citizens of Nassau county in many different
ways.
What do you
think about Ratner’s plan for the coliseum? Let us know on our Facebook page.
