Belmont Park Village Sets a Sophisticated European Aura for Off-price

There’s something very European about the new Belmont Park Village, with its pedestrian-only, open-air setting, landscaped plazas, and designer and upscale shops.

It’s a much different experience than the typical American mall, outlet or discount centers, evoking a level of serenity you don’t expect. Given the quality of the architecture and interior design of the individual stores, the 340,000-square-foot Belmont Park Village seems more full price than off-price, but that’s the format. Stores display seasonal products from the past year at prices 30 to 65 percent off, and the prices are kept discrete, without signs blasting discounts. There’s a concierge, VIP client services, personal shopping, fine dining and a 6,500-square-foot “apartment” for entertaining or just taking a break from the shopping.

Belmont Park Village is the newest in The Bicester Collection’s portfolio of 12 open-air shopping centers or “villages,” and the first to open in North America. They all offer designer merchandise at off-price. Located at 2501 Hempstead Turnpike in Elmont, N.Y., Belmont Park Village is about 19 miles from Manhattan, and accessible by the Long Island Railroad, which has a station right there. The site is in Nassau Country, just east of the Queens border and is a major component of the redevelopment happening in the area, including the renovation and downsizing of Belmont Park, the thoroughbred horse race track. Right next door is the UBS Arena, where the New York Islanders hockey team plays and concerts are held. The arena opened in November 2021.

Belmont Park Village houses the first off-price U.S. boutiques from Missoni, Aquazzura, René Caovilla and Jacob Cohën as well as Thom Browne. There are also off-price boutiques from Hugo Boss, Roberto Cavali, Valentino, Baccarat, Etro, Brunello Cucinelli, Lululemon, The North Face and Levi’s, among others. A third or more of the center is populated by Italian labels. There’s space for more than 150 shops, and currently, about 40 are open for business.

Recently at Belmont Park Village, the six-year collaboration between Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana and The Bicester Collection was celebrated. In the spotlight was Carlo Capasa, chairman of Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, who was recognized for strengthening the organization’s efforts to champion Italian fashion and luxury. The Milan-based CNMI represents approximately 250 brands and organizes Milan Fashion Week. “Together with our designers, our artisans, and partners such as The Bicester Collection, we continue to safeguard our heritage, while embracing the future with responsibility and vision,” Capasa said.

Also front and center was Scott Malkin, founder and chairman of the U.K.-based Value Retail, which owns and operates The Bicester Collection. He also co-owns The UBS Arena and the Islanders. “Carlo Capasa’s work has contributed to the elevation of Italian fashion from a national industry into a global cultural force,” Malkin said. “Through his leadership, Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana has helped Italian luxury brands communicate their heritage and vision internationally, ensuring that Italy’s design culture remains a benchmark for the global fashion industry.” The Bicester Collection supports CNMI’s mission in several ways, by nurturing emerging designers and advancing sustainable luxury through collaborations including the CNMI Fashion Trust and the CNMI Sustainable Fashion Awards.

Following the ceremony, Malkin and Capasa sat down for a joint interview to discuss their partnership, the importance of physical stores and the progress at Belmont Park Village.

WWD: What is the basis of your partnership with The Bicester Collection?

Carlo Capasa: One of our pillars at our association is sustainability. Another pillar is education and promoting new brands. So when we met Scott and his team, we found that there are many things in common around sustainability. Belmont Park Village is a story of circular economy. You see a second life of the product, and it’s very beautiful. And also talking about durability, those elements for us are crucial if we want to have a better world. The second pillar that [ties] us together, is educating people. People here discover a brand, and then probably they decide to buy at the full-price store elsewhere. We’re teaching them the values behind those clothes, how they’re made? All the hand made work.

WWD: Why is this partnership so suited for your membership?

C.C.: Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana represents 250 brands from Marni, Versace, Prada, Gucci, Valentino, Dior and Fendi, all the best Italian brands, all luxury or quiet luxury. These brands are quite complicated and they want to have their image very much respected. That’s why we have this partnership with The Bicester Collection. When our brands enter The Bicester Collection villages, we feel that the brand identity is respected. The price is a second part. But what is very important is the level of experience, the level of the people selling products, the level of display, the level of the products that are there. If it was something else, we couldn’t have a partnership.

WWD: What makes Belmont Park Village and The Bicester Collection distinctive?

Scott Malkin: It’s intended to be comfortable, so people can spend a day. They normally spend five or six hours. They wander around in our villages, they feel relaxed and they fall in love with the brand, with the product, and it’s less complex than a department store because you have the individual boutiques. We have a global relationship with the brands, whether it’s in Shanghai or outside of Paris or outside of Manhattan. The consistency of excellence and execution is something we work hard to deliver to the guests because the guests travel internationally. They are global citizens. The staff has to be good in a world where AI is taking over and nothing can compete with Amazon or Alibaba for execution.
We are in the age of the internet for retail, but it’s the age of physical experience and flagships for brands. And the way you understand value, artisanship and about brands is in these physical moments. And that’s our business — to create a flagship experience for the brand [serving] a sophisticated guest.

WWD: When people first show up here, do they know it’s an off-price situation, because strolling through, it doesn’t really read off-price or outlet?

S.M.: That’s true for all 12 of our locations. We do the same thing everywhere. So if you go to Bistro village outside of London, which has sales densities of $4,500 a square foot, which is very high, it doesn’t feel like anything to do with a shopping center, let alone an outlet shopping center. We can never say that this is about outlet shopping, because it isn’t. It’s about giving a second life [to fashion]. It’s about customer acquisition [so they subsequently buy] at full price. It’s about a flagship experience. But Belmont Park Village is unique in the U.S. today and consistent with what we do in Shanghai, outside of Milan, outside of Barcelona and at the other Bicester villages.

WWD: Stores have been trickling in, one by one, and just half the village is open for shoppers. How long have you’ve been in that soft-opening phase and when do you figure there will be the hard-opening phase?

S.M.: Our grand opening will be in 2027 when the Belmont Race Track reconstruction will be completed, And the arena, which opened at the end of 2021 will have its grand opening in ’27. This is a 430-acre campus with $3 billion of new investment. The goal of the race track is to be the hub for racing in the West, just as Meydan and Dubai are the hubs in the East for horse racing. This is an integrated attraction destination with elements that work together in partnership, that support one another.

WWD: Is it taking longer than expected to get brands to commit to stores?

S.M.: We’re going faster than most of our other projects around the world, and this is the best opening we’ve ever had of the 12 villages in terms of the quality of the brands, the quality of the consumer, the comprehension of the consumer. So interestingly, though, we are not yet fully open with high levels of footfall, the sales densities are at levels that are surprisingly high, since we’re getting a really high caliber guest, particularly on the weekends. We build and open in phases.

WWD: What’s the objective for sales per square foot?

S.M.: Bicester Village [outside London] does $4,500 a square foot, and we should be able to do the same thing here. That would be our goal. We are approaching that at La Vallée Village, which is outside of Paris. It’s beginning to catch up to Bicester Village. La Vallée has a more complex positioning because it’s integrated into the master plan of the Disney Paris site. [Belmont Park Village] is a place where everyone goes to the airports, there’s that flow to the Hamptons. In France, we are to the east of Paris, which was not historically a traveled route. So each village is different.

WWD: With Kennedy and La Guardia airports not far away, how do you link up with travelers or those headed to the Hamptons, with marketing Belmont Park Village?

S.M.: What’s exciting is that we see people who leave their hotels in the morning, 11 o’clock, maybe they have lunch with us or they come out in the afternoon. We have hands-free shopping. We look after their bags while they’re here. The next step will be to be able to deliver with the airlines. We’re working with the airlines on that.

WWD: The neighborhoods surrounding Belmont Park Village are not high-income communities. Is that a concern?

S.M.: We are a global hub. We’re not trying to attract from one particular location, let alone one neighborhood nearby. That’s a different role for a different kind of project. With our projects in Europe, we’re typically 50 percent international. Some of the projects can be as high, depending upon what’s happening in the world, as 70 or 75 percent international.

WWD: Do you track concertgoers coming to or from UBS Arena who show up at the village?

S.M.: We certainly do if we’re taking care of their parcels for them, because we know, they’re at the concert, right? But in general, we’re doing surveys.

WWD: I know many more shops have yet to open, but how is traffic so far?

S.M.: We’re doing now, say 6,000 on a weekend. It will grow to 10,000.

WWD: What’s read on business and consumer spending?

S.M.: The world is confused, and the customer is confused, and actually people are spending. And there are some brands doing incredible business and some brands are not. The U.S. economy is sound and the spending power is there. It’s a lot about how emotionally confident the consumer is. We know that in China, for example, the consumer is very cautious right now. In China, we just have the two villages, in Shanghai and Suzhou.

C.C.: Globally, the fourth quarter of this year is looking [to be] the best since two years.…If you look at Italian fashion, in two years, we lost 10 percent of our turnover, but we lost mainly from Chinese spenders, not only in China, but also from around the world. Now the situation is more consolidated. The U.S. is going quite well, I would say we just had an unsure moment with the tariffs. But now business is going well, and all the rest of the world is going well, and China now is quite stable.

WWD: Do you consider the Americana, in Manhasset, Long Island, or Roosevelt Field mall, in Garden City, Long Island, as competition?

S.M.: I don’t think we have a natural competitor. We’re not in the shopping center category. We’re not competing with an outlet shopping center. So if you look at the ones owned by public companies, we’re not really doing the same thing. They can monitor now our soft opening, it makes no difference to them in terms of harm.…What will happen over time is we’ll be able to direct guests [to the Americana] as a convenient point of full price distribution, because we’re not full price. One of the members of the Americana team was here today as our guest. We are absolutely aligned.”