UBS Arena

Overview

Situated within thoroughbred horse racing’s famous Belmont Park, UBS Arena seats 17,000 for hockey games and 19,000 for concerts and other events. The arena feature premium clubs and suites, outdoor terraces and a large enclosed marshalling yard for easy load-in and load-out for concerts and shows. The arena also serves as the centerpiece of a $1.3-billion complex, which will include 350,000 square feet of retail space. 

We provided structural design and construction engineering services to Populous for the venue, which opened in November 2021.

Highlights

• The arena’s long-span roof is constructed of 2,300 tons of steel and features four trusses that are 350 feet long and 35 feet deep. The heaviest roof truss weighs 180 tons. The roof has a rigging capacity of 400,000 pounds and was designed to support a 100,000-pound scoreboard that can be located above the ice for hockey games or fully retract into the roof structure for concerts and other events. At the time of construction, the high-resolution LED scoreboard was the largest center-hung scoreboard in New York state and features one of the longest traveling hoists available in arenas.
• UBS Arena features the only seating bowl in the metro New York area with sightlines specifically designed for hockey games. Several large sections of the upper deck and the suite level cantilevers 16 feet into the seating bowl to put fans up close to action. These sections were carefully engineered to minimize crowd-induced vibrations. 
• The exterior design of UBS Arena was inspired by several New York landmarks past and present: Central Park, Ebbets Field, Grand Central Terminal, Park Avenue Armory, and the Boathouse in Prospect Park. 
• Five unique materials, each with its own structural system, were utilized for the exterior façade. They are architectural precast panels with thin brick, glazed curtain wall, insulated metal panels, louvers and glass fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC) panels.