Nassau Coliseum pitched to be downsized into "Radio City" for Nassau; Belmont arena developers disclose "roughly" 50 suites

Last month, as reported in Newsday, Tim Leiweke of the Oak View Group--operator of the UBS Arena--suggested that the Nassau Coliseum could be, in the paper's paraphrase, "a Long Island version of Manhattan’s Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall or the Beacon Theatre."

Those are all accessible by subway, with capacity below 6,000. The NYCB Live website states, "The Coliseum offers 14,500 seats for basketball, MMA and boxing, 13,900 for hockey, up to 15,000 for concerts, and 4,500 seats for its theater configuration."

So that's essentially writing off the Coliseum--which was recently renovated and downsized--as a large venue, and emphasizing its curtained-off version.

This week that proposal solidified, as Newsday reported 9/8/2020, Nassau Coliseum would become music venue under new partnership:

The owners of the Islanders are partnering with Oak View Group on its proposal to downsize the Nassau Coliseum into a music theater once the Islanders move to UBS Arena at Belmont Park next year, Oak View Group chief executive officer Tim Leiweke said.
Leiweke called the addition of Islanders owners Scott Malkin and Jon Ledecky, his partners on the $1.5 billion Belmont arena project, a boon to Oak View Group’s Coliseum pitch because the partnership would provide the nearby arenas with “synergy” in bookings, marketing and sales.
The bolstered Coliseum bid came as the arena’s new leaseholder, Nick Mastroianni II, said Tuesday he was beginning to hold internal meetings, “to make some decisions and hopefully take a direction” on the future of the Coliseum.

Note that Mastroianni’s company U.S. Immigration Fund, which as Newsday accurately put it "orchestrated a $100 million loan for the Coliseum’s $180-million renovation from 200 Chinese investors," is not the leaseholder but rather the agent for and representative of those leaseholders--and their interests are not necessarily aligned.

(Updated 12/1/20.) The U.S. Immigration Fund was not the investor; it recruited 200 Chinese investors to raise $100 million. But the U.S. Immigration Fund, which manages that investment, may well now control the lease.

Leiweke told Newsday that the Coliseum "could become a complement to Radio City Music Hall," which has a capacity of 5,960. (Note that the Theatre at Westbury has a capacity of 2,870.)

Keep in mind that, according to the Socioeconomic Conditions chapter of the July 2019 Final Environmental Impact Statement for the new Belmont arena, the Coliseum, before renovation, was already averaging only 4,669 tickets for non-sporting events, according to Pollstar, as shown in the graphic above.

New Belmont arena--50 suites?

I've previously written about the strategic ambiguity from the developers of the new UBS Arena at Belmont Park, unwilling to disclose the number of suites--perhaps because they're hard to sell.

However, a recent press tour for friendly hockey writers did offer some details. As Peter Schwartz reported 9/8/20 for New York Sports Day, "UBS Arena will have approximately fifty suites that will be complimented by lavish premium seating."

That same day, NYI Hockey Now's Christian Arnold wrote, UBS Arena Puts Islanders Hockey, Fans First, quoting co-owner Jon Ledecky, "We’ve shrunk the number of suites so there are only roughly 50 suites in the entire building."

Note that at various times Ledecky has said that they'd sold more than one-third of the suites, which suggests at least 17. Then again, if "roughly 50" means 46, well, one-third of the total would be 15.

Ledecky told Schwartz, "It’s going to be the loudest and the most intimate arena in the National Hockey League. They wanted prices that were affordable for them so we’ve listed [sic] to that.” Stay tuned on that one.