Just three months after SL Green CEO Marc Holliday angrily denounced the rejection of a Times Square casino as a historic mistake, the city’s largest commercial landlord has officially moved on.
SL Green told is moving forward with a hotel and entertainment complex at 1515 Broadway. Photo: Phil O’Brien
With New York State awarding its three downstate casino licenses to projects in Queens and the Bronx — and none in Manhattan — SL Green now plans to transform 1515 Broadway, above the Minskoff Theatre, into a massive hotel and entertainment complex instead.
The shift was laid out this month during the company’s 2025 Investor Conference, where executives described what Holliday called “an equally attractive Plan B” for the Times Square tower, as reported by Forbes.
In September, Holliday was visibly furious after the Community Advisory Committee voted down SL Green’s Caesars Palace Times Square proposal, partnered with Caesars Entertainment and JAY-Z’s Roc Nation.
Calling the outcome “a despicable display of cowardice,” Holliday accused elected officials of denying the city jobs and investment. A month later, he was calmer but still defiant, telling investors the casino idea was “not completely dead.”
SL Green CEO Marc Holliday (right) at a casino hearing with Roc Nation’s Desiree Perez and Rev Al Sharpton. Photo: Michael Hull
That door now appears firmly shut. “All of the Manhattan proposals were not accepted,” Holliday told investors this month. “They all failed. It’s a great loss for the city — but we’re going to move past that.”
The centerpiece of SL Green’s new plan is to convert 32 office floors into 992 hotel rooms — a relatively straightforward change, because of the building’s layout, explained Executive Vice President Brett Herschenfeld.
Street level renderings for the new hotel concept mirror renderings released for the casino plan. Renderings: SL Green
“Thirty-two floors of office become 992 hotel rooms,” he said. “It will have the best hotel views in the city. And I think a hotel in the middle of the world’s greatest tourist destination might be a pretty good idea.”
With Paramount — now part of Skydance — preparing to vacate most of the building, SL Green expects large portions of the tower to be empty in the coming years, creating an opening for redevelopment.
One of the most immediate changes could be highly visible to anyone standing in Times Square.
SL Green now controls the windows above the Minskoff Theatre that currently display The Lion King signage — a detail Herschenfeld emphasized repeatedly.
Executive Vice President Brett Herschenfeld empasized repeatedly that SL Green now controls the windows above the Minskoff Theatre that currently display The Lion King signage. Photo: Catie Savage
“We now control the rights to all the windows showing The Lion King advertisement,” he said. “How can we create enormous value in its place? Very simple.”
The company plans to wrap those windows in massive digital screens, similar to the Marriott Marquis next door.
Herschenfeld called Times Square “the most robust advertising market in the world,” and added: “All I have to do is reprogram the screens and we have the best signage at the center of the bowtie.”
Floor plan rendering shows how the existing offices at 1515 Broadway would be converted to hotel rooms. Rendering: SL Green
Beyond the hotel and signage, SL Green is floating a suite of entertainment ideas that echo — but stop short of — the casino vision. Plans include a new SUMMIT observation deck at the top of 1515 Broadway, similar to the wildly popular SUMMIT One Vanderbilt (which SL Green developed and runs), as well as immersive attractions at street level.
“Virtual ride technology has become so real that you feel like you’ve traveled the distance of a Coney Island roller coaster,” Herschenfeld said, “but yet you remain in the confines of a 10,000-square-foot room.”
With podium floor plates of roughly 60,000 square feet, he suggested SL Green could build “an entire theme park of the future at the base of 1515.”
SL Green Executive Vice President Brett Herschenfeld (right) at one of the casino Community Advisory Committee hearings in August. Photo: Phil O’Brien
The Nederlander Organization recently renewed its lease for the 1,710-seat Minskoff Theatre, home to The Lion King, and SL Green has not announced any changes to the theater itself.
SL Green executives framed the pivot as a win-win for Times Square, promising tourism dollars, new jobs and investments without gambling. “Casino or not, we are still the home team,” Herschenfeld told investors. “That’s our DNA.”