For three decades plans have come and gone.
What is next for the Nassau Coliseum and surrounding property? New York State has awarded three casino licenses to New York City, shutting out the rest of downstate New York in landing a casino. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman is issuing a warning about New York City residents are bad and need surveillance going into the county and is running for governor. Note to Blakeman, you might not want to upset New York City and its more than eight million people when you need some of those people to win the gubernatorial election. Blakeman doesn’t seem to have a plan for the redevelopment of Nassau Coliseum property.
In May, the Las Vegas Sands Corporation pulled out of its bid to land a gaming license for a casino on the Nassau Coliseum property. The Las Vegas Sands Corporation was the latest group of investors who wanted to develop the 77-acre plot of land in Uniondale that surrounds the 53-year-old Nassau Coliseum. The building at one time housed the National Hockey League’s New York Islanders and the American and National Basketball Association’s New York Nets. It is pretty much a ghost town. The building is 13 miles east of the Islanders arena at Belmont Park. That building has hockey, concerts and some mass transportation.
The Las Vegas Sands Corporation paid $241 million in June 2023 to acquire the leasing rights to the Coliseum and its surrounding grounds. The Las Vegas Sands wanted to put a casino on the property. New York State announced that it is offering three downstate casino licenses, one in Westchester County just north of New York City, another in New York City and one on Long Island. The Las Vegas Sands did not seem to want to keep the Coliseum around. The initial plan was to build a casino village that would include a 4,500-seat concert hall, two hotel towers and three parking garages. It is just the latest plan that has fallen apart. For decades speculators have wanted to develop on the property that the County owns. Howard Milstein and Steven Gluckstern bought the Islanders franchise in 1998 with the thought of building an arena-village. The plan fell apart.
In the 1960s, Nassau County politicians decided to put an arena in an old air force base. The American Basketball Association found a buyer for the New Jersey Americans in Roy Boe who took his team to Long Island and eventually would get a lease with Nassau County. Boe then did the National Hockey League a big favor by buying an expansion team in 1971 to keep the rival World Hockey Association out of the New York market and competing with Madison Square Garden’s New York Rangers. Boe moved his ABA team into the NBA in 1976 and Madison Square Garden repaid him by demanding a ransom for invading Knicks territory. Boe couldn’t afford the merger fee and the Garden’s demands and sold off his best player Julius Erving to the Philadelphia 76ers for $3 million. He sold the basketball team to New Jersey interests and nearly sunk his hockey team.
John Pickett rescued the hockey team but made some really bad decisions. He signed an awful 30-year lease in 1985. Pickett also had a pair of con artists as partners and sold the team to a crook, John Spano who had no money. Eventually, Pickett sold the team to the Millstein brothers, New York City realtors who saw the team as a way to seize and develop the 77-acre Nassau Coliseum property. The Millsteins failed and Charles Wang bought the team. Wang somehow kept his team in the New York area despite a horrible lease at the Nassau Coliseum, politicians unwilling to play ball with him in building an arena-village. In 2011 and Nassau County residents voted on a new arena, they said no and that left the owner Charles Wang to look elsewhere for a solution. That elsewhere was Brooklyn. The team played in Brooklyn from 2015 through 2020 and the team went back to the Nassau Coliseum for the 2020-21 season and then franchise move to a near arena in Elmont with a new ownership group led by Scott Malkin.
The old building sits empty for the most part. The NBA’s G League Long Island Nets team uses the arena. There is a bridal show on January 10th and 11, two dates of Monster Trucks on January 17th and 18th and a Harlem Globetrotters show on February 21st. The Professional Championship Bull Riders on March 7th and four more events, the Long Island Home show on April 18th and 19th and the Long Island Trade Card Show on May 2nd and 3rd. Nassau County is not making any money from the building. The old building is a money drain.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
Nassau Coliseum
