National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman said Friday he expects the Islanders to break ground on their new arena Belmont Park on schedule in early 2019.
“Based on everything I know, based on everything I’ve been told, we expect that arena to be coming out of the ground sometime in the next nine months to a year,” Bettman said.
The arena, part of a $1 billion privately financed sports and entertainment project, began the environmental review process last month.
Officials from Empire State Development, the state’s primary business development agency that awarded the development rights in December to the Islanders’ group, have said the environmental review stage is expected to last 12-to-16 months.