Cosmos: Time is running out

On Sunday, soccer fans will descend on Hofstra University to watch the New York Cosmos battle the Ottawa Fury FC for the North American Soccer League championship.

Unfortunately, the game is dwarfed by the ongoing political battle among Cosmos management, local and state politicians and the New York Empire State Development Corporation.

The Cosmos submitted a bid for a new stadium complex in Belmont Park to the ESD in early 2013. Two other bids for a different use of the southern section of the park — mixes of retail space and recreation areas — were also submitted in response to a request for proposals by the development corporation in late 2012. It has yet to make a decision on the bids. “The Empire State Development Corporation continues to review and consider all responses,” an ESD official told the Herald.

The Cosmos’ proposed 25,000-seat stadium would cost an estimated $400 million and be privately funded, with no burden on taxpayers, according to the team’s chief operating officer, Erik Stover. “The answers we’ve gotten whenever we’ve spoken to them is, ‘We’re still evaluating,’” Stover said of representatives of the ESD. “Their original statement to us was they’d make a decision by summer of 2013.”

The Cosmos focused on Belmont Park because of the park’s location in a diverse community and its convenience for users of public transportation. But Stover said that the lack of movement on the bid has forced the team to explore other opportunities outside Long Island.

“Every day that goes by is another opportunity lost for us,” he said. “If we don’t get a resolution by the end of this year, then we will focus on other sites.”

Elmont’s losing the Cosmos would be a victory for Nassau County Legislator Carrie Solages, who has questioned the value of building a stadium in Elmont, as well as the development corporation’s limiting the proposals to projects without residential components. Solages has called for a closer look at the relationship between the development corporation and the Cosmos. “I want to explore if the RFP here was designed for the Cosmos,” he said.

According to Solages, the Cosmos are falsely representing the wishes of the majority of people in Elmont, who he believes do not want the stadium. He has contended that affordable housing and a 100,000-square-foot supermarket should be built instead. Elmont lacks a supermarket of that size.

“All the proposals that are currently being considered leave much to be desired by the community,” Solages said. “Community leaders from the Elmont Civic Association, the Chamber of Commerce and the Elmont soccer club oppose the project.”

Nonetheless, Long Island union workers and Elmont residents held a rally in support of the Cosmos’ proposal on Oct. 29. According to Roger Clayman, executive director of the Long Island Federation of Labor, more than 2,000 permanent jobs would be created if the Cosmos’ RFP were approved.

“The jobs that it would produce would be jobs like selling hot dogs,” Solages countered. “The people in this neighborhood deserve jobs that are sustainable, especially for the high cost of living here on Long Island.”