\u201cThe benefits you denied this community and this city and state \u2014 you have to live with that history forever,\u201d he shouted.<\/p>\n
Each casino proposal is required by the state to include at least $500 million worth of investment in the communities where they plan to build. The Times Square proposal estimated its total investment to be worth $5.4 billion, with 3,800 permanent jobs created and $250 million in support to the community, including safety improvements to Times Square and $15 million for a civil rights museum.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Opponents of the Times Square proposal cheered the decision. The Roc Nation project \u2014 which had invested heavily<\/a> in winning local residents\u2019 support \u2014 had faced especially strong pushback from the Broadway theater industry.<\/p>\n \u201cSo grateful to our elected officials and committees who voted, because this wasn\u2019t just a win for us, it was a win for the entire community,\u201d said LaChanze, an actress and theatre producer, at a press conference in Times Square after the vote. \u201cThis is our home. When we come together, when we fight for our city, we win.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Ready for a Vote\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Even as the Caesars proposal went down in defeat, the developers of the Avenir made a last-minute effort to postpone their vote \u2014 with Silverstein Properties protesting that it had received a request from the committee to amend their application late Tuesday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the Avenir Community Advisory Committee proceeded with a vote, also voting two in favor, four against.<\/p>\n Nabeela Malik, Mayor Eric Adams\u2019 representative on the CAC for The Avenir, was one of the two members who voted yes for the casino \u2014 but first expressed concern that the vote was happening with still two weeks left until the deadline.<\/p>\n \u201cBy moving today\u2019s vote forward we effectively lost more than two weeks of deliberation,\u201d Malik said. She remarked that the proposal is complex and that more time would have allowed for committee members to review, comment and consider the application.<\/p>\n Former Assemblymember Richard Gottfried, appointed by Sen. Liz Krueger to the committee, voted no, and said he thought the committee was ready for a vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a process that has been going on now for actually several years and our process has gone for at least for a couple months,\u201d Gottfried said. \u201cIt\u2019s been as open and involved and fair a process as I\u2019ve seen in decades in involvement in state and local government, so I think we\u2019re ready for a vote.\u201d<\/p>\n The Avenir was a projected $7 billion development with 4,000 full-time and 1,000 part-time jobs, its application to the state said.<\/p>\n Dino Fusco, chief operating officer of Silverstein said he was surprised the CAC went ahead with a vote on Wednesday after the CAC requested an amendment to Silverstein\u2019s proposal \u201cten minutes before the 11th hour,\u201d and Silverstein repeatedly asked to delay the vote.<\/p>\n Fusco said Silverstein has worked with the CAC for two and a half months, and with constituents in the neighborhood for years, to put forward a proposal that included an increase in residential and affordable housing and close to $100 million of funding to the MTA.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a bit surprising to me, that with that good faith effort that we were making, to try to make our proposal as reinforcing as what we had gotten feedback on, to not even have the opportunity to have that conversation is very, very disappointing,\u201d said Fusco, in a press conference after the vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n With Wednesday\u2019s votes, the two Manhattan projects have no path forward to become legally licensed casinos. Had they received a green light from the committees, the proposals would have moved forward to a final review by the Gaming Facility Location Board, convened by the New York State Gaming Commission.<\/p>\n That board has said it will make a final decision on up to three available casino licenses for the downstate area by the end of the calendar year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Six other proposals are still in the running. They include plans from Bally\u2019s for its Throggs Neck golf course, Thor Equities in Coney Island, Mets owner Steve Cohen near Citi Field and Soloviev Group\u2019s Freedom Plaza on the east side of Manhattan. Two already licensed electronic-only gaming halls from Resorts World in southeast Queens and MGM Empire City in Yonkers are also seeking full-casino licenses.<\/p>\n Proposals have faced considerable local opposition<\/a>, including in The Bronx and around Citi Field. The Coney Island proposal, too, saw heated debate<\/a> at its final hearing last week.<\/p>\n Wednesday\u2019s votes are the end point in a long and winding road for the two shot-down Manhattan casino proposals, which have both been in the works for years. West side neighbors cheered their downfall.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have common concerns that are very much community oriented and also having a community remain an actual community,\u201d said Anne Haas, a longtime Hell\u2019s Kitchen resident. \u201cA place where you can raise your kids and a place where there\u2019s affordable housing, where people care about those things. A place where people care about the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cards are down, and two proposed casinos in Manhattan are out of the running in the first…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":234677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-234676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115221556684612728","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Anti-Times](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/091725_casinos_no_votes-6.jpg\")
Anti-Times Square casino advocates celebrate a community advisory committee voting down the proposal, Sept. 17, 2025 Credit: Ben Fractenberg\/THE CITY<\/p>\n