ELMONT, N.Y. – The New York Racing Association plans a complete renovation of Belmont Park’s main track and two turf courses and is also looking at the possibility of adding a synthetic track as part of its plans to renovate the entire facility, Chris Kay, NYRA president and CEO, said on Wednesday. “We think it would be best to go down to bedrock and rebuild each of our tracks so it has a better drainage system, better irrigation system,” Kay said in an interview with Daily Racing Form. [They’re] built in such a way to take advantage of today’s technology to make the track safer and operate more effectively. It would certainly make sense if we’re going to be having this kind of reconstruction to the dirt and turf courses to also look at a synthetic track.” A synthetic track, which would be built inside the inner turf course, could be used to accommodate winter racing when downstate operations are moved from Aqueduct to Belmont. It could also provide a third surface on which to offer races and be used to run races that are rained off the turf. Kay emphasized that the circumference of the main track would remain at its current 1 1/2 miles. Kay said NYRA is still in the conceptual stage of putting together plans to renovate the racing surfaces as well as all four floors of the grandstand. NYRA also needs certain regulatory approval for these renovations. But Kay said he hopes NYRA’s plans could be approved so that any construction to the facility coincides with the redevelopment of other parts of the property, which is to include a new hockey arena for the New York Islanders, an outdoor retail shopping village, and a hotel. Construction on those projects is tentatively scheduled to begin in May 2019, with a hoped-for completion by the fall of 2021. “It’s important for both the Islanders and the New York Racing Association that we finish around the same time – sometime in 2021 – so therefore I think it’s important for everybody to start in 2019,” Kay said. Kay hopes to do a significant modernization to all four floors of the grandstand to create congregational space on the first floor, a simulcasting facility similar to Longshots at Aqueduct, restaurants that overlook the paddock and the racetrack, as well as rooms or areas that outside companies may want to use for meetings or parties. “I’m trying to create places where people of different ages and different demographics would have a great time and either renew their love affair of horse racing or fall in love with horse racing for the first time,” Kay said. Kay said that interactions with New York Arena Partners, the group that was chosen to build and operate the hockey arena – which will be built behind the grandstand on the west end of the facility – have gone very well. New York Arena Partners on Tuesday shared plans with local residents to move its shopping village to the south side of Hempstead Turnpike while moving a proposed hotel more toward the current track grounds, which could encroach on the backyard. “We consider the backyard to be a very important place at Belmont – as well as at Saratoga – and we’ll make sure we do everything we can to make sure it’s a very pleasant place to be and an enhancement over its current situation,” Kay said. Kay said it is still his desire to conduct night racing at Belmont Park in the future. Due in large part to opposition from the Standardbred industry – specifically Yonkers Raceway – a bill permitting night racing was not put in this year’s state budget. Kay said he will continue the fight to include it in the 2019 budget. Kay said that just as people have a choice to go to a hockey game or a basketball game, so should they have the choice to attend a Thoroughbred track or a Standardbred track. “We will continue to try and make that point with the lawmakers,” Kay said.