More twists and turns in the NY Islanders’ Lighthouse Project negotiations

during the New York Islanders rookie cxamp at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on July 7, 2010 in Uniondale, New York.

Bruce Bennett

New York Islanders owner Charles Wang has been striving for a new arena - or at least an improved situation for the team, which resides in the oft-critiqued Nassau Coliseum - for quite some time and hasn’t had an easy time dealing with officials in the area.

Chris Botta of Islanders Point Blank chronicled the latest developments in the Lighthouse Project. First, he wrote that the City of Hempstead was far from cooperative with Wang and the Islanders.

The LHP’s 2,306 residential units have been dropped to 500. As PB forecasted, Hempstead is selling the idea of 5 million square feet, but that includes parking. Finally, as broken exclusively on Point Blank, the Lighthouse Development Group and the office of Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano issued a joint statement slamming the pushback: “The Town of Hempstead’s new vision looks to be economically unviable to the developer and owner of the site.”

There might be a light at the end of the tunnel for the (cough) Lighthouse Project, though. Botta just reported that Mangano and Wang might have another trick up their sleeves.

Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano wants to partner with Charles Wang on a development that would consist of a new Coliseum and training facility plus an entertainment and gambling center the quality of Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, sources have told Point Blank.

Determined to keep the Islanders in Nassau and find solutions for his budget crisis, Mangano knows Wang is his ideal partner. As a result, the first-year Nassau County Executive has become an Islander fan’s best friend. While Hempstead Town Supervisor Kate Murray did not even mention the hockey franchise in her Lighthouse push-back statements in Monday’s editions of Newsday, Mangano is all about keeping the Islanders in their original county and where they won four Stanley Cups.

(snip)

For starters, Mangano is proposing quite a gift: a brand new arena for the Islanders to be built on the available 77 acres of property and be completed two years after the start of construction. The Islanders would not have to wait until 2015 to move in.

A state-of-the-art NHL arena/concert venue combined with a Mohegun Sun-like entertainment and gambling complex makes sense on a lot of levels.

Botta expands on that information here. It sounds like Wang has an ally in Mangano, so perhaps things will work out for the owner, the team and their fans.

We’ll keep you up to date as more information filters through.