NEW YORK — A community panel will vote Tuesday morning on whether an $8.1 billion casino resort proposed by Hard Rock International and New York Mets owner Steve Cohen can move forward.
Metropolitan Park would be built in Queens next to CitiField, the Mets’ stadium.
It will be the subject of a yes-or-no vote by a community advisory panel that has the power to send it forward for additional scrutiny by New York state gambling regulators, or kill it outright.
The panels assess the pros and cons of a proposal against the level of community support for or opposition to it.
The Hard Rock project is the final one of eight casinos that were proposed in or near New York City to undergo a first-round vote.
Much is at stake for Atlantic City in the votes on New York casinos — particularly the Hard Rock proposal.
A community advisory panel on Monday allowed a proposal by Bally’s Corp. for a casino in the Bronx to move forward. Later in the day, a second panel shot down a plan to build a casino in Brooklyn’s Coney Island neighborhood.
Hard Rock International owns the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City, the resort’s No. 2 casino in terms of money won from in-person gamblers.
It also plans to open a casino at the Meadowlands Racetrack if voters ever legalize casino gambling in places other than Atlantic City.
In 2016, voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposal for casinos in North Jersey. But a bill that would ask them again to approve new casinos, this time specifically at the Meadowlands and at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, was introduced in May in the state Legislature.
Hard Rock’s proposed New York project includes a casino, hotel, live entertainment venue, restaurants and 25 acres of new park space on land next to CitiField.
So far, panels have given first-round approval to three projects. They include the expansion of racetrack slots operations at Empire City in Yonkers, which is owned by MGM Resorts International, which also owns Atlantic City’s Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa.
Resorts World was preliminarily approved for a similar expansion at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, and Bally’s Corp., which also owns a casino in Atlantic City, was given initial approval for a casino in the Bronx.
Three Manhattan-based projects, including one by Caesars Entertainment, Atlantic City’s largest casino owner with three properties, have been rejected, along with a project in Brooklyn’s Coney Island neighborhood.
Contact Wayne Parry:
609-272-7000
wparry@pressofac.com
X @WayneParryAC
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