Belmont Park redevelopment remains 'on time and on budget'

The $455 million redevelopment of Belmont Park reached a milestone Wednesday morning.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, officials from the New York Racing Association, representatives from AECOM Tishman and Populous, unionized construction workers and more joined to celebrate a topping out ceremony, marking the placement of the final beam at the new Belmont Park.

Marc Holliday, the chairman of the NYRA board of directors, confirmed that the multi-year project is “on time and on budget.”

“To launch one of the greatest, largest racetrack projects ever in history right here, and a world-class facility,” Hochul said. “Marc and I were talking about the tracks we have here — is there anything else like it? Perhaps in Dubai. I don’t know. I haven’t been there lately, but I’m going to say no because I have not seen it.

“And so what it does is it projects us into the future, but it honors Belmont’s storied past, and that’s the genius behind this.”

Belmont Park is expected to reopen in September 2026, with the Belmont Stakes returning in 2027. The Breeders’ Cup also will run at Belmont Park in October 2027, the showcase’s first time at the site since 2005.

The state loaned NYRA $455 million for the project, which has included tearing down the old 1.25-million square-foot grandstand and replacing it with a 300,000-square foot, five-story facility. It will generate $1 billion in construction-related economic impact and create 3,700 construction-related jobs. Activities at the new facility will generate $155 million in annual economic output and produce $10 million in new state and local tax revenue per year.

From the Topping Out Ceremony at Belmont Park: pic.twitter.com/if6GUilQtK

— Ben Dickson (@bendickson__) October 15, 2025

The park will have four tracks: a 1 1/2-mile dirt course, two turf courses and a synthetic track.

“We've got three different tunnels going into the infield,” NYRA CEO David O’Rourke said. “We’ve got a brand-new building that's dual-sided to a paddock that is the same size as the Saratoga paddock, so it's big. And it's very accessible in terms of the general admission crowd, in terms of their ability to get near the horses like you have in Saratoga. That's something that we've been trying to adopt here on the Belmont plan.”

Belmont's last day of horse racing before the reconstruction project started was in 2023. Newsday reported in 2024 that 221 horses died at Belmont Park in the previous five years. NYRA said after the Newsday report that the new Belmont Racetrack would be safer for horses when it reopens in 2026 because of the addition of a synthetic track and infrastructure improvements done for the first time in a half century.

Eric Reid, the COO of AECOM Tishman, the construction manager for Belmont Park, is a lifelong Floral Park resident.

“I remember days in high school looking out the window, watching the horses, watching the jockeys, watching all of the staff in getting the horses ready and running the facility,” Reid said. “And it's somewhat surreal to see all these years later, to be here demolishing the existing grandstand and building a world-class modern grandstand for generations to come. It's the chance of a lifetime.”

Reid said the next 11 months include, among other tasks, the installation of a glass curtain wall, the completion of the structural steel and adding state-of-the-art television screens and infield scoreboards.

“We will be working seven days a week getting this ready for the deadline next year,” he said.

Floral Park Mayor Kevin Fitzgerald expects the community to rally around the venue.

“It's always been a bedrock of the community, Belmont Park, and I think it'll be enhanced now that the new facility is here,” he said. “Especially with the creation of jobs, a lot of people that work here 365 days a year live in Floral Park. And always welcoming more people to Floral Park, inclusive of not only living but visiting and coming to operate restaurants.”

Since UBS Arena opened in 2021, fans have complained about the traffic and transit options in getting to Islanders games. Could the completion of the new Belmont Park alleviate that?

“It could bring more traffic, but so far so good,” Fitzgerald said. “Floral Park has our own police department, so we can control a lot of things and move things around pretty quickly if we need to.”

O’Rourke sees things improving upon the project’s completion.

“Once there's less of a construction site, I think that's going to help,” he said. “And that train station has been amazing, and the utilization has gone up every year. The UBS folks will speak to that. So yeah, I think everything's going to work out well.”