Plans for new facility unveiled

Details of what the new Belmont Park will look like, including artist’s renderings of the facility expected to open in 2026, were released Monday afternoon by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

At roughly 275,000 square feet, the new building will replace the existing 1.25 million-square-foot building and include modern amenities and hospitality offerings including restaurants and suites. Due to the smaller building, the amount of available green space will increase from 6.94 acres to 36.45 acres.

The new building is being designed by the well-regarded architectural firm Populous in conjunction with NYRA, whose chairman, Marc Holliday, is a prominent builder. Populous has designed many racing venues world-wide, including Ascot and the renovated Churchill Downs.

“The new Belmont Park will be a thoroughly modern racing and entertainment facility that will take its place on the global stage among iconic venues like Ascot, Longchamp, and The Curragh,” Holliday said in a press release.

Last year, Hochul announced that the state would loan the New York Racing Association $455 million for the project which, in addition to replacing the existing building with a new one, includes the renovation of the existing three surfaces – the 1 1/2-mile main track and two turf courses – as well as the installation of a one-mile synthetic surface. The synthetic surface would be used for scheduled turf races that are rained off and for some or all of winter racing beginning in 2027.

“The redevelopment of Belmont Park is a critical investment in one of New York’s most historic sporting venues,” Hochul said in a press release. “The new facility will support year-round racing, thousands of new jobs for Long Islanders, and provide an enhanced experience for attending the iconic Belmont Stakes for generations to come.”

The new Belmont will have capacity for 50,000, a figure at which the attendance for the Belmont Stakes has been capped for several years. According to the release, the layout of seats, suites, and standing spaces has been adjusted to accommodate flexible seasonal attendance.

Monday’s release provided a rough timeline of the project, with demolition of the current building scheduled to start this month and be completed by the end of July. The new building will begin to take shape in early 2025 with the installation of structural concrete.

The project is expected to generate $1 billion in construction-related economic jobs and create 3,700 constructionrelated jobs, according to the release.

To accommodate an uninterrupted construction process at Belmont, downstate racing will be conducted at Aqueduct through at least May 2026. The Belmont Stakes will be held at Saratoga both this year and next, as part of a four-day race week in June each year.

While the new Belmont building is not scheduled to open until September 2026, the NYRA has developed a project plan that will allow for the Belmont Stakes to return to Belmont Park in June 2026. The NYRA also is hoping to be able to attract the Breeders’ Cup back to Belmont as soon as 2026. The event has not been held at Belmont since 2005.

The Breeders’ Cup will be held at Del Mar in 2024 and 2025, but a host track for 2026 has not been announced.

Once the renovation project is complete, all downstate racing will take place at Belmont Park. Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens will be eligible to be used by the state for development opportunities.

Last week, the Aqueductbased Resorts World Casino, as part of a proposal to become a full-service casino, unveiled a $5 billion project that would enable the state to kickstart a process to redevelop the Aqueduct property. Part of that process includes 3,000 units of “workforce housing,” 50 acres of parkland, and unspecified mass transit improvements for connections to John F. Kennedy Airport and Manhattan, according to a report in the New York Daily News.

In addition to the frontside improvements, NYRA is continuing to modernize the Belmont barn and backstretch by constructing three new dormitories by 2026.

POPULOUS The new Belmont Park will have a capacity of about 50,000 people. The facility is scheduled to reopen in September 2026, but there are plans to run the Belmont Stakes there in June 2026.