Newsday columnist: demolishing the Coliseum "would provide a fresh start." (Does the EB-5 middleman profit?)

Another influential voice is calling for the demolition of the renovated, but lagging, Nassau Coliseum, following a Newsday editorial and comments by the Nassau County Executive.

 
Can the Nassau Coliseum curse ever be lifted?" wrote Newsday columnist Randi Marshall, who likely wrote the earlier editorial.

Her 8/2/22 column recalled the referendum, eleven years earlier, when county taxpayers rejected a referendum to use taxpayer funds for a new Coliseum. (Newsday backed the referendum.)

Now the arena's mostly dark, "surrounded by 72 acres of parking lot," which could be developed. Marshall blames not only elected officials:

The rejections of good plans and the proposals of bad ones. The Islanders' move to Brooklyn and back. The constant tenant changeover. The pandemic. The new UBS Arena at Belmont Park just a few miles to the west. A renovation that left the Coliseum with little more than a $100 million loan that hangs on it like an albatross. The vague rumblings that a casino could come to the Hub.

Sure, those are all factors, but those who thought the new arena and Coliseum could co-exist ignored reasons for skepticism before the pandemic.

What now?

Writes Marshall:

So it's up to developer Scott Rechler, EB-5 investment middleman Nick Mastroianni, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, and Hempstead Town Supervisor Don Clavin to find another way. This is likely the last best chance for the Nassau Hub. In about six months, Rechler's deal with the county could run out.

The answer might lie in eliminating the cursed facility altogether. Demolishing the Barn isn't simple, but it would provide a fresh start. And it might just rid the land of whatever dark force hovers over it.

Ah, "EB-5 investment middleman Nick Mastroianni" of the dubiously named U.S. Immigration Fund, who somehow controls the lease, and thus controls the 200 Chinese investors who provided the $200 million who, if the EB-5 loan had been structured in a standard way, would control the lease themselves.

I wouldn't be surprised if that "albatross" somehow gets removed, or diminished, and Mastroianni ends up with a new way to profit.