Nassau County voters on Monday turned back a $400 million bond proposal to build a new arena for the National Hockey League’s New York Islanders.
According to the county’s Board of Elections, 57% of voters in the suburban region east of New York City iced a plan for 30-year taxable bonds that would also have included a minor-league ballpark in Uniondale, adjacent to the arena.
Turnout was only around 10%. According to the elections board, which reported results from all but two of the county’s 1,160 precincts, merely 155,000 voters cast ballots in a midsummer referendum that cost the county $2.2 million.
“We will find a new path, a path that solves the problems and blockades to redeveloping this property,” county Executive Edward Mangano said at a news conference after the results were announced near midnight.
“I’m heartbroken that this was not passed,” team owner Charles Wang said at the same conference. Wang said the team, which began play in 1972, would play on Long Island at least until its lease expires in 2015.
Absent a new arena, the team could move after that, possibly to Kansas City, Mo., or a Canadian city. The Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., scheduled to open in September 2012, could be an option, although an adjustment to the building would be necessary to accommodate hockey.
Opponents said the bond issue would have imposed an extra $14 million of debt annually on a county that is already financially strapped. Nassau County’s independent Office of Legislative Budget Review estimated that the debt service cost on the bond would have required about $29.3 million annually, and that receipts were estimated at around $15 million per year.
A state board, the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, is overseeing the county’s finances. They also argued that public money would have been spent for essentially a private real estate deal, and that economic and attendance projections from the county and Wang were overly optimistic.
Nassau County is rated A1 by Moody’s Investors Service, A-plus by Standard & Poor’s and AA-minus by Fitch Ratings.
