New York City is at an inflection point in the long and drawn-out “beauty pageant,” as one observer put it, to award three downstate casino gaming licenses by year’s end, with billions of dollars, thousands of jobs, and uncharted opportunities hanging in the balance. Some of the proposals have already garnered ardent opposition.
“ This is the biggest potential development probably since Hudson Yards in the city of New York,” said Evan Stavisky, president of the lobbying firm Parkside Group, which worked with Las Vegas Sands on a since-withdrawn casino bid and is not affiliated with any of the eight pending proposals. “People in the gaming industry are waiting with bated breath.”
What they are watching unfold now are project reviews by community advisory committees – powerful six-person panels charged with holding meetings on proposals, each with authority to advance a project to a final round of scrutiny by the state’s Gaming Facility Location Board – or to cancel it outright.
Except for one bid, targeting an existing gaming site in Yonkers, all of the proposals are sited within the five boroughs. Each of the New York City bids will go before a CAC made up of appointees from Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams, as well as the corresponding borough president, state senator, assembly member and city council member – or in some cases the local-government officials themselves.
Each CAC is slated to vote on its respective project by the end of September. The state, which granted licenses to upstate casinos a decade ago, is then charged with awarding the three downstate gaming licenses in December. The stakes are high, with some applicants projecting earnings of tens of billions of dollars within the first 10 years, as well as billions of dollars in tax revenues.
Admiration and scorn for the process
The process of whittling down casino candidates has prompted a variety of responses from those participating in it or observing at close proximity. Some are offering scorn and others praise for the selection process.
Richard Gottfried, a former assembly member from Manhattan who serves on two CACs, said the process places considerable power in the hands of the committee members, who must support a casino proposal with a two-thirds supermajority for a project to advance to the final stage. Without that high clearance, Gottfried said, a project is effectively dead in the water.
“ I don’t know that I’ve seen over the years any similar veto power in the hands of a similar community advisory body,” Gottfried said. “It’s really quite extraordinary.”
Gottfried called the process “scrupulous” so far: Gaming companies are forbidden from communicating with committee members outside of public meetings, which he said is ”quite healthy and appropriate.”
At the same time, Gottfried said CAC members have to be circumspect about all of their communications: If four or more members gather over coffee and discuss the application, “ that constitutes a quorum and it has to be an open meeting, with notice to the public.”
But Bennett Liebman, the government lawyer in residence at Albany Law School and an expert on the gaming industry, has a less-generous assessment.
Liebman said the process had become less an objective analysis of varying casino proposals and more of a “beauty contest,” with candidates pushed to stack their offerings with “P.R. stunts” and community benefits to win over CACs made up of local appointees.
One flailing pitch drew attention last week.
Developer SL Green, pushing a proposed Caesar’s Palace Times Square, had offered residents of an iconic affordable housing complex nearby, Manhattan Plaza, use of a more than $22 million fund, in support of various endeavors, as well as a portion of future casino profits in perpetuity.
The project backers changed course after a community backlash over the payout, saying it would instead target a longstanding local charity that serves a variety of local groups in the Hell’s Kitchen area. Also last week, 16 Broadway theater marquees addressed the proposal, in a hard-to-miss way: Their marquess were lit up with red signs that read, “No Times Square Casino.”
Liebman said the process was fundamentally flawed: “‘How can we get (CAC members) on board by throwing enough goodies at them to get them to accept our proposal?’”
He added he was highly skeptical that appointees were independent enough to vote against the elected officials who had appointed them.
“It’s an unbelievably silly, silly process that sort of brings out the worst in government,” Liebman said. He added: “Hopefully there’ll be a reckoning with a better review process in the final go-round.”
Sales pitches hit snags
Information for all CAC hearings is listed on the website of the state’s Gaming Facility Location Board. A recent CAC meeting, held July 30 for the Coney Island-based project “The Coney,” offered a preview of the kinds of inquiries – and possible pushback – that could ensue. The sales pitch by backers of The Coney, who promise to revitalize a community some say had fallen on hard times, was met with sharp scrutiny of their claims.
In a video screened at the meeting, archival images of the Coney Island of yore transitioned to renderings of the future neighborhood, complete with glittering hotels and attractions.
“Coney Island is ready for a renewal,” said Joe Sitt, the chairman of Thor Equities, one of the groups in a consortium backing the proposal, in the video. “Ready to bring back the wonder that once was.”
In their application materials, the developers stated that 9% of the estimated 4,500 jobs generated by the casino would go to residents of Coney Island and Gravesend, and 44% would go to residents of the rest of Brooklyn, with Queens and Manhattan residents each getting 15% and Staten Island and Long Island residents each getting 6%. The median casino job would pay $46,000, according to the developer’s projections, or $72,000 with tips.
Marissa Solomon, a member of the CAC appointed by Assemblymember Alec Brook-Krasny and a vocal critic of the project, zeroed in on employment benefits – or the lack thereof. She argued the developer had long promised a jobs boon for Coney Island residents, but, based on the developer’s own estimates, that would hardly be the case.
By her calculations, “If you actually do the math for that, that’s actually only 182 full-time jobs,” Solomon said, adding that with the additional jobs, the neighborhood unemployment rate would only come down slightly.
“You said it was going to be transformational,” Solomon said. “Right now, Long Island and Queens are getting more jobs than Coney Island.”
Members of the presenting team for The Coney did not dispute Solomon’s figures, only saying that they were projections and that the employment figures could eventually be higher. In an email to Gothamist, Solomon said she continued to have questions about how The Coney would impact the neighborhood, in terms of jobs, traffic and public safety, “and I hope the rest of the CAC process can further illuminate those issues.”
Stavisky, the lobbyist, said members of the gaming industry would be watching closely as well. “They’re going to be studying anything that comes out of Schenectady, where the gaming commission is headquartered, the way the world will stare at smoke coming out of the Sistine Chapel when there’s a new pope elected,” he said.
Proposed casinos in contention for a state gaming license
Manhattan
- The Avenir, located at 11th Avenue & 41st Street, is a $7 billion mixed-use development that, in addition to a casino, would include a 1,000-room luxury hotel, a dozen restaurants and bars and a public art gallery
- Freedom Plaza, at 686 1st Ave., is an $11 billion project located immediately south of the United Nations that would include a casino, two luxury hotels, a 5-acre park and “the largest wellness center in Manhattan.”
- Caesar’s Palace Times Square, at 1515 Broadway, is a $5.4 billion project that would include 250,000 square feet of gaming space and 950 hotel rooms; the bid heavily emphasizes that in the relative absence of new restaurants or entertainment facilities, it would drive visitors to existing hotels, restaurants and Broadway theaters.
Brooklyn
- The Coney, located at 1232 Surf Ave., is a $3.4 billion project with gaming, a 500-room hotel facing the ocean, a 25,000 square foot entertainment venue, a convention center and 20 restaurants.
Queens
- Resorts World New York City, located at 110-00 Rockaway Blvd. in Jamaica, where Aqueduct Raceway is currently in operation, is a $5.5 billion project featuring gaming, 2,000 hotel rooms, 30 food and beverage establishments and a 7,000-seat arena.
- Metropolitan Park, located at 123-01 Roosevelt Ave., next to CitiField Stadium, is a $6.4 billion project with gaming, a Hard Rock live theater, 1,000 luxury hotel rooms and a 25-acre public park.
Bronx
- Bally’s Bronx, located at 450 Hutchinson River Pkwy., is a $4 billion project with gaming, a 500-room hotel and event center.
Westchester
- MGM Empire City, located at 810 Yonkers Ave. in Yonkers, is a $2.3 billion redevelopment including renovation and expansion of the current gaming area, with three full-service restaurants, a parking garage and a new entertainment venue.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
