At long last, ribbon is cut on new Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum
Outside, it might have been drizzly and cold, but inside spirits were running high among officials on Friday as they cut the ribbon on the new NYCB Live Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, revamped at a cost of $165 million in private funding by Forest City Ratner Companies. Billy Joel will open the remodeled Coliseum on April 5.
Media thronged the Coliseum and its environs for a morning and afternoon of news conferences and tours of the 416,000-square-foot structure, which now glimmers in the middle of Nassau’s Hub, the academic and shopping district at the heart of the county.
“Our goal was to create a space that reflected the tremendous sense of place that permeates Long Island, from the look of the building to the taste of the food,” said Bruce Ratner, executive chairman of Forest City Ratner. “Our talented architectural and development teams have succeeded beyond our dreams, creating a venue that is visually striking and wonderfully comfortable.”
Some 4,700 brushed aluminum fins enclose the rotunda, creating the sense of waves rolling onto a beach, or as officials said, “a subtle flow that reflects the big skies of the flat Long Island landscape.” The fins can be lighted up in multiple colors at night. The architecture firm SHoP Architects designed the exterior, and Gensler, the interior.
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