Arena details announced!

At a press conference this morning at the Coliseum, Ed Mangano flanked by Charles Wang announced the lease details between Nassau County and the Islanders for the 400 million dollar referendum they are seeking to build a new Nassau Coliseum as well as a minor league ballpark.

According to people who were there today the following were key points from the presser today:

• The plan will bring in 1.2 billion dollars in revenue, generate 3040 construction jobs and 1515 permanent jobs.




• The Isles will contribute 400 million dollars in profits to Nassau taxpayers on top of the revenue sharing.




• Even after the debt is paid off on the arena taxpayers will continue to see revenue from the Coliseum.




• Mangano will host a series of informal meetings to inform the public on this. (More on this at the bottom of the post)




• Profits will be used to offset property taxes for residents as well as businesses.




• 11.5% of all revenue from the Coliseum will go to taxpayers. Not just revenue from Islanders games.




• As was said last month any costs of 350 million dollars for the arena will be covered by the Islanders.




• The 350 million number DOES include the costs of demo for the current Coliseum.




• According to the construction report the Islanders expect the average ticket price to be $64 at the time the new coliseum opens.




• Wang says a campaign is being put together to get the word out to vote yes on 8/1.




• At the draft party on Friday the Islanders will have voter registration available for people.




• If no one comes to the new arena 70% of the debt service will be covered and we all know that the chances of no one coming to the coliseum are virtually 0




• Economist says residents wouldn't pay more then $58/yr in taxes however the number will probably be closer to around $16.




• The plan right now would be to break ground on a new Coliseum next June after the playoffs.




• According to the Islanders live blog of the event they will be setting up a website to inform people of the details of this, i'm thinking it would be similar to the blog they had for the Lighthouse Project but thats pure speculation on my part.

As I said above, Mangano has scheduled a series of informal mettings on this topic. Here is a list of the ones that have been currently scheduled:

June 29th at the East Meadow Library at 1886 Front Street from 12:00PM-2:00PM and from 4:00PM-8:00PM.

June 30th at the William P Bennett Hicksville Community Center at 28 West Carl Street. All of them will be at the same time.

Friday July 1st at American Legion Hall at 730 Willies Ave. in Williston Park.

More will be scheduled from July 11th-July 15th

The numbers are better then most people thought, and it seems as though that Wang is giving in a lot more then people thought he would! I think having the informal meetings is vital! Also its about time they got campaigns going to get people to vote yes because Newsday has done a good job of turning people against it so now they have dispel the misinformation that has been put forth by Newsday in recent articles.

Overall, this was a good day for the Islanders and us their fans !!

http://islanders.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=566637