Editorial: Wise to plan for post-Islanders Coliseum

Long Island is going to lose its only major league sports franchise in 2015, but that doesn't mean it must lose its largest entertainment venue. Making the Nassau Coliseum viable without such a team, and developing the potential of the 77-acre Uniondale property it sits on, are the next challenges on the drawing board for a project that's suffered through a history of failures.

Together, Nassau and Suffolk counties constitute a huge and affluent market, boasting almost 3 million people. The community deserves a significant sports and entertainment venue of its own.

Make no mistake, the flight of the Islanders to Brooklyn stings. The team has been a reliable anchor tenant for the Coliseum and a shared touchstone for Long Island residents. But if you listen to experts, keeping the team was part of what made any larger project so expensive.

The economics of major league sports demand ultramodern arenas laden with luxury suites and other high-end amenities. That's what corporate customers crave, and it's corporate customers that pay the big-league freight. But that's not true of "Disney on Ice," or the circus or many other types of entertainment.

Now Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano has created a group to seek the best vision for refurbishing the Coliseum in a reasonable manner, and developing the property in a dynamic one. If it succeeds, the needs and wants of residents can be served.

On board to find that workable game plan is Bruce Ratner, developer of the Islanders' future home, the Barclays Center. Also in the lineup are Plainview developers Don Monti and Scott Rechler, whose company was a major partner in Islanders owner Charles Wang's failed Lighthouse proposal. Several other real estate and development players have also been asked to be part of the team.

Given the reality that the Islanders will be gone for good in 2015, this development is positive, even while it is purely speculative.

The obstacles that kept projects from going forward at the Hub in the past -- the need for a $150-million parking garage, terrible traffic, a lack of financing for needed infrastructure like highway ramps and access roads, financing difficulties and a distaste for high-density development on the part of the Town of Hempstead -- haven't gone away.

Those concerns doomed Wang and Rechler's Lighthouse Project. Taxpayers refused to open their wallets, defeating a county referendum on public financing. Just as important, they probably kept numerous developers and investors from even taking a serious stab at devising a plan for the site, even though Mangano has sought such input.

But if such a project can be done, Ratner and the others are likely the ones who can figure out how, although they've been tasked only with creating the plan, not executing it. And if there's a time when the stars could align to get it done, it's likely now, with elections in Hempstead and Nassau coming up next November and weariness with the endless failures to make progress at the site.

It's been a long and endlessly detouring journey toward redeveloping the Hub. There's still no clear destination, but there is, now, at least a possible path toward one.