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Newsday: now it's time to demolish the Nassau Coliseum. But it was fine, pre-pandemic. Right.

It's time for change at the Nassau Hub, Newsday editorialized 7/16/22, adding, "Nassau Coliseum has served Long Island well but now is an expensive albatross that must be demolished."

It begins:

For decades, little has changed at the economic wasteland known as the Nassau Hub.

An arena with tight corridors and few modern amenities. Dozens of acres of empty asphalt around it. Plan after plan. Deadline after deadline. Dashed hope after dashed hope. Failure after failure.

The latest and perhaps the best chance to end this dismal cycle and turn the Hub into a job-creating, revenue-generating destination is in the hands of Nassau County, the Town of Hempstead and developer RXR Realty.

They must not get this wrong.

That means embracing the right uses, like housing and health care, and rejecting the wrong ones — like gambling. It means removing impediments — like the Nassau Coliseum itself — and welcoming assets, such as potential partnerships with entities like NYU Langone.

So that means cooperation from the Town of Hempstead must approve a "comprehensive master plan," which includes zoning variances to allow new uses and encourage "anchor tenants and other prospective partners." 

Here's more on RXR's plans.

Goodbye, Coliseum

And it means demolishing the county-owned arena. The editorial states:
But building the most economically viable and invigorating development, one that could boost the county and the region, means giving RXR a blank canvas. Nassau Coliseum must be demolished. The beloved but long-maligned arena has served Long Island well for 50 years but now it's an expensive, unsuccessful albatross. RXR and its partner, Coliseum tenant Nick Mastroianni, who also has a stake in any development at the site, must find a way to resolve the $100 million loan saddling the arena. State funds already committed to the Hub, combined with profitable development there, could help make the math work.
(Emphasis added)

A "way to resolve the $100 million loan" means... relieving the dubious Mastroianni, the middleman who somehow took control of the arena lease and a share of the area development, of his obligation to the EB-5 investors that he has already misled?

Competition with Belmont

I pointed out that, while state documents claimed that that the new arena, with the NHL's New York Islanders as anchor tenant, would happily coexist with the county-owned Coliseum, but a closer look suggested the two would compete.

That meant "there’s a good chance the older arena would wind up being a white elephant."

Yesterday, after the recent Newsday editorial, I tweeted a reference to my essay. I also noted that it took some ten months, until October 2019, for Newsday to publish some skeptical reporting.

My first tweet got a snarky response from Newsday editorial writer Randi Marshall. My response, as shown in the bottom tweet, that Newsday's own reporting backed my argument.
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