New York City is at an inflection point in the long and drawn-out \u201cbeauty pageant,\u201d as one observer put it, to award three downstate casino gaming licenses by year\u2019s end, with billions of dollars, thousands of jobs, and uncharted opportunities hanging in the balance. Some of the proposals have already garnered ardent opposition.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aThis is the biggest potential development probably since Hudson Yards in the city of New York,\u201d said Evan Stavisky, president of the lobbying firm Parkside Group, which worked with Las Vegas Sands on a since-withdrawn casino bid<\/a> and is not affiliated with any of the eight pending proposals. \u201cPeople in the gaming industry are waiting with bated breath.\u201d<\/p>\n What they are watching unfold now are project reviews by community advisory committees \u2013 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\u2019s Gaming Facility Location Board \u2013 or to cancel it outright.<\/p>\n 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 \u2013 or in some cases the local-government officials themselves.<\/p>\n Each CAC is slated to vote on its respective project by the end of September. The state, which granted licenses to upstate casinos<\/a> a decade ago, is then charged with awarding the three downstate gaming licenses in December. The stakes are high, with some applicants projecting earnings<\/a> of tens of billions of dollars within the first 10 years, as well as billions of dollars in tax revenues.<\/p>\n Admiration and scorn for the process<\/b><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aI don’t know that I’ve seen over the years any similar veto power in the hands of a similar community advisory body,\u201d Gottfried said. \u201cIt’s really quite extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n Gottfried called the process \u201cscrupulous\u201d so far: Gaming companies are forbidden from communicating with committee members outside of public meetings, which he said is \u200a\u201dquite healthy and appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n 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, \u201c\u200athat constitutes a quorum and it has to be an open meeting, with notice to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n But Bennett Liebman, the government lawyer in residence at Albany Law School and an expert on the gaming industry, has a less-generous assessment.<\/p>\n Liebman said the process had become less an objective analysis of varying casino proposals and more of a \u201cbeauty contest,\u201d with candidates pushed to stack their offerings with \u201cP.R. stunts\u201d and community benefits to win over CACs made up of local appointees.<\/p>\n One flailing pitch drew attention last week.<\/p>\n Developer SL Green, pushing a proposed Caesar\u2019s Palace Times Square, had offered<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n The project backers changed course after a community backlash<\/a> over the payout, saying it would instead target a longstanding local charity that serves a variety of local groups in the Hell\u2019s 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<\/a> that read, “No Times Square Casino.”<\/p>\n Liebman said the process was fundamentally flawed: \u201c\u2018How can we get (CAC members) on board by throwing enough goodies at them to get them to accept our proposal?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n He added he was highly skeptical that appointees were independent enough to vote against the elected officials who had appointed them.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s an unbelievably silly, silly process that sort of brings out the worst in government,\u201d Liebman said. He added: \u201cHopefully there’ll be a reckoning with a better review process in the final go-round.\u201d<\/p>\n Sales pitches hit snags<\/b><\/p>\n Information for all CAC hearings is listed on the website<\/a> of the state\u2019s Gaming Facility Location Board. A recent CAC meeting<\/a>, held July 30 for the Coney Island-based project \u201cThe Coney,\u201d offered a preview of the kinds of inquiries \u2013 and possible pushback \u2013 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n “Coney Island is ready for a renewal,\u201d said Joe Sitt, the chairman of Thor Equities, one of the groups in a consortium backing the proposal, in the video. \u201cReady to bring back the wonder that once was.”<\/p>\n 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\u2019s projections, or $72,000 with tips.<\/p>\n 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 \u2013 or the lack thereof. She argued the developer had long promised a jobs boon<\/a> for Coney Island residents, but, based on the developer\u2019s own estimates, that would hardly be the case.<\/p>\n By her calculations, \u201cIf you actually do the math for that, that’s actually only 182 full-time jobs,\u201d Solomon said, adding that with the additional jobs, the neighborhood unemployment rate would only come down slightly.<\/p>\n \u201cYou said it was going to be transformational,\u201d Solomon said. \u201cRight now, Long Island and Queens are getting more jobs than Coney Island.\u201d<\/p>\n Members of the presenting team for The Coney did not dispute Solomon\u2019s 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, \u201cand I hope the rest of the CAC process can further illuminate those issues.\u201d<\/p>\n Stavisky, the lobbyist, said members of the gaming industry would be watching closely as well. \u201cThey’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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Proposed casinos in contention for a state gaming license<\/b>Manhattan<\/b><\/p>\n Brooklyn<\/b><\/p>\n Queens<\/b><\/p>\n Bronx<\/b><\/p>\n\n
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