by JAKE NUTTING

The New York Cosmos have reaffirmed their desire to build a first rate soccer specific stadium, as well as a retail and entertainment complex, at Belmont Park.

The club updated its website cosmosstadium.com to include new renderings and language after the Empire State Development Corporation asked all interested bidders to submit revised proposals for the tract of land adjacent to the Belmont Racetrack. ESD made the request in November after taking the smaller of the two parcels of land, known as parcel A, off the table.

Shortly after ESD informed the bidders they would need to readjust their plans, Cosmos COO Erik Stover told EOS that the hope was that they could figure out a way to fit everything into parcel B. Today’s updates show that the club has stuck to the ambitious scope of its plan by doing just that

Despite losing the valuable space, the Cosmos are not backing down from their proposed 25,000 seat stadium. They also now hope to incorporate the “restaurant row” that was originally meant for parcel A into their plans for parcel B. Those nine restaurants will now be shifted to the team’s mixed-use plans for parcel B, which include a 175-room hotel and over 300,000 square feet of retail.

Notably, the new images on the team’s stadium website still show a pedestrian bridge connecting parcel B and the proposed stadium to the north side of Belmont where the racetrack sits. Stover called this walkway integral to the project back in November.

Bidders were required to submit their final revised plans this week, though the timetable for when they should expect to hear back from ESP is still unknown. Belmont remains the first choice for the Cosmos, but the club has begun to seriously consider back up plans after nearly three years of waiting around for answers from the decision makers.