Inside Belmont Parks glamorous facelift and whats next in massive project

Bet big on the new Belmont. Long Island’s racing crown jewel is now Nassau County’s front-runner, with a futuristic new look, an added track to introduce winter racing, first-class dining and amenities, plus acres of a game-changing spectator infield that can be repurposed for concerts and other non-equestrian events. “I think we’ve improved the everyday fan experience quite dramatically,” NYRA CEO David O’Rourke told The Post before Friday’s long-awaited “Return to Racing” events. Belmont Park underwent a three-year, start-from-scratch rebuild into a significantly smaller but highly sophisticated $455M grandstand.The new space is 300,000 square feet, down from 1.25 million, for broadly open-air-focused renovations for the public to trot themselves. Hold your horses, though. Belmont remains a work in progress, with only two of the grandstand’s five levels open for business: a ground floor for comfortable general admission, bars and bites, with sit-down restaurants, clubs and a NYRA betting room above. Luxury suite levels and a balcony event space overlooking the sweeping NYC skyline, which could host a wedding, will be the finishing touches. Other areas of the complex, like its newly accessible, spread out infield, trackside scenic open areas and an underground tunnel connecting the campus to the far-away emerald parking lot, are also still to be completed. Its true ribbon cutting is expected in early 2027 — ahead of the long-awaited return of June’s Belmont Stakes, which has been run upstate in Saratoga since 2023. Belmont’s face-lift also included a $100M renovation of the Belmont Stakes’ iconic 1 ¹/₂-mile dirt track plus two turf tracks and introduced a 1-mile Tapeta oval. The synthetic Tapeta track will be used for winter racing instead of Queens’ recently shut down Aqueduct Racetrack.

The new grandstand’s design includes a more effective, climate controlled indoor space for spectators during cold-weather runs, such ...