LIRR Elmont station’s first phase set for 2021

Tom McCarthy
The Elmont Station is set for completion in late 2022 in conjunction with the LIRR Expansion Project. (Photo courtesy of the Governor's Office)

The first phase for the LIRR’s first new full-time LIRR station in nearly 50 years, which will serve the Belmont Park redevelopment project, is set for completion in 2021. The second phase is set for completion after the LIRR expansion project from Floral Park to Hicksville is finished in 2022.

According to Jack Sterne, a spokesman for Empire State Development, the state agency responsible for approving the project, the first phase will consist of constructing an eight-train-car-length platform north of the arena, providing eastbound service for Hempstead Branch trains.

The second phase will construct a platform on the north side of the tracks for westbound service that is at least 10 train cars long, a pedestrian overpass connecting to the south platform with elevators and an extension of the south platform to accommodate 12 train cars.

“This is expected to be completed when the Third Track Project is complete (LIRR has recently estimated this to be late 2022 or early 2023),” Sterne said about the second phase in an email.

According to Sterne, the new station, located between the Queens Village and Bellerose stations on the LIRR’s Main Line, just east of the Cross Island Parkway, will provide direct service to Belmont Park from both the east and west. Travelers who live east of Belmont on the Hempstead, Oyster Bay, Port Jefferson, and Ronkonkoma branches will have a one-seat public transit ride straight to Belmont Park, Sterne said.

Electric shuttle buses which were already planned to run from parking lots within Belmont Park to the arena site will also serve LIRR riders traveling to the grandstand and planned arena, hotel and retail village, Sterne said.

According to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office, the project will buoy the region’s economy, creating approximately 10,000 construction jobs and 3,200 permanent jobs, generating nearly $50 million in new public revenue annually, creating approximately $725 million in annual economic activity and generating annual employee earnings of roughly $133 million.

According to the governor’s office, “one-time” economic benefits related to the construction of the new arena, hotel, retail village and LIRR station include $2 billion in total economic output from construction, 6,900 direct construction jobs paying an average salary of $78,000 and 3,100 spillover construction jobs and $707 million in total earnings from construction employment.

The Belmont redevelopment project has been a major source of discussion in Floral Park. The Village of Floral Park attempted to delay the project’s approval in early August with a request for a “supplementary environmental impact statement” to review additions to the project which included the new train station.

At an Aug. 13 board meeting, Floral Park Mayor Dominick Longobardi and the village board said that while the board has $50,000 in the budget available for legal action, suing would cost far more than what the village has. Legal options, he said, are still being considered.

“Given the amount of damage that this can do to us, we are weighing those options,” Longobardi said about pursuing legal action.

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