New York City is poised to get three casinos.
The state Gaming Facility Location Board on Monday recommended that the Gaming Commission award casino licenses to the three remaining proposals in Queens and the Bronx.
The proposals include Steve Cohen’s Metropolitan Park, an $8 billion facility planned near Citi Field; the proposed $4 billion complex at Bally’s Golf Links at Ferry Point; and Resorts World’s $7.5 billion expansion of the Queens Aqueduct.
The board assessed the proposals based on four different categories, giving the most weight to “economic activity and business development,” which included various factors, including total planned investment, jobs potentially created and each team’s ability to finance the project.
The proposals now go to the commission, which is expected to issue the licenses by the end of December.
The commission will not second-guess the assessment of the board, but will make sure the casino proposals meet statutory requirements, many of which were part of the board’s review, a spokesperson for the commission told TRD in October.
During a press conference after the board’s meeting, Chair Vicki Been rejected the idea that the commission’s decision would be a “rubber stamp.”
“Having now spent many, many hours with the Gaming Commission team, they are an incredibly hard working, dedicated, thorough, exacting and tough group to get through,” she said. “And they ask the right questions.”
A reporter asked Been whether the board considered former accusations of insider trading at Cohen’s former hedge fund, and the settlement with federal officials that followed. She said that didn’t fall within the board’s purview.
“The job of determining the character and fitness and the integrity of the applicants falls to the Gaming Commission,” she said. Another issue that might be considered is Resorts World’s agreement this year to pay Nevada $10.5 million to settle allegations that it failed to comply with federal anti-money laundering laws.
The three winners were the only remaining competitors in the years-long race for one of three state licenses up for grabs.
The board’s announcement comes after Community Advisory Committees eliminated four teams from the competition, including every Manhattan proposal. In a surprise move last month, MGM Resorts dropped its bid to turn its Yonkers facility into a full-blown casino. At the time, the company blamed the decision on “a newly defined competitive landscape,” pointing to the fact that the remaining proposals were clustered in a “small geographic area.”
MGM also wanted an initial 30-year license, but based on rules issued by the state in October, the company’s Yonkers proposals would only qualify for 15 years.
Under the rules, in order to qualify for 30 years, an applicant would need to invest at least $10 billion. Resorts World pegs its investment at $7.5 billion, and Cohen estimates $8 billion for Metropolitan Park, which would mean a 20-year license for each. The projected investment at Bally’s is $4 billion, which means it qualifies for a 15-year license.
The board’s consultants estimate that the three casinos could generate $7 billion in incremental gaming tax revenue from 2027 to 2036. The projects are also expected to generate $5.9 billion in other local and state taxes.
The consultants projected different revenue estimates than the bidders. They thought Resorts World, in particular, overshot its annual tax revenue projections. The company estimated that its facility would generate more than $1 billion in revenue each year, while the consultants projected that revenue would total more than $4 billion over 10 years.
“We asked our consultants to be extremely searching and thorough, and we asked them to be very conservative,” Been said. “They disagreed with some estimates by the applicants, and thought that they were quite high.”
Plans for Metropolitan Park would turn 50 acres worth of parking lots next to Citi Field into a casino complex with a Hard Rock hotel, a 5,650-person live music venue, restaurants and 25 acres of green space. As part of their casino bid, Cohen and Hark Rock International have also teamed up with Slate Property Group to build 450 affordable housing units at 54-19 100th Street in Corona, roughly two miles from the planned casino.
The Bally’s casino would be built on 16 acres of parking lots and practice green area at Bally’s Golf Links at Ferry Point. The project would include 500 hotel rooms and a 2,000-seat entertainment venue.
The planned expansion of the Queens Aqueduct would add gaming space (6,000 slot machines and 800 table games), as well as 2,000 hotel rooms and a 7,000-seat arena. Resorts World has also agreed, through an agreement with Cirrus Real Estate, to invest in 50,000 workforce housing units citywide.
In the lead-up to Monday’s announcement, Gaming Commission Chair Brian O’Dwyer has emphasized that the state could issue up to three licenses and could opt to award fewer. During a September meeting, he called the competition a “tabula rasa.”
Still, Resorts World, and MGM before it dropped out, appeared to have a leg up in the contest, given that they were already operating as slot parlors.
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