SL Green And Silverstein's Manhattan Casino Bids Are Officially Dead

The dream of a casino in Times Square is officially dead. The same goes for a $7B bid for a gaming resort on Manhattan's Far West Side. 

In back-to-back meetings on Wednesday morning, community advisory committees voted 4-2 against proposals led by SL Green and Silverstein Properties, two of New York's premier developers. The votes are the nail in the coffin for the bids, which each promised to inject hundreds of millions of dollars into the local community. 

SL Green’s $5.4B bid, in partnership with Caesars Entertainment and Jay Z’s Roc Nation, included a 150K SF casino and 992-room Nobu-branded hotel in the middle of Times Square at 1515 Broadway.

Silverstein proposed The Avenir, a $7B, 785-foot mixed-use tower with a casino, a 1,000-key Hyatt-branded hotel, more than a dozen restaurants, a 150-seat entertainment venue and a public art gallery. It partnered with Rush Street Gaming and Greenwood Gaming and Entertainment on the bid for a Silverstein-owned site at 11th Avenue and West 41st Street across from the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

There are six members of the CACs, with a nominee each from Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, Assemblymember Tony Simone and City Council Member Erik Bottcher. State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal had a representative on The Avenir CAC, while Sen. Liz Krueger appointed a member to the Caesars Palace Times Square CAC.

Hochul and Adams' appointees voted to approve both projects, while the other four members voted to reject them.

Following the Caesars vote, SL Green CEO Marc Holliday asked to speak, but the CAC denied that request, The Real Deal reported.

“What you did here today was a despicable display of cowardice, lack of leadership, lack of consideration for all the people who would benefit from this proposal,” he said after the meeting. “We met the standard, and then some.”

SL Green's stock price fell more than 4% Wednesday morning following the rejection. Caesars Entertainment's shares were up by roughly 1%.

The joint venture committed $250M to the community over the coming years if the project were to be approved, including an $81M neighborhood public safety plan, $15M for a new civil rights museum by the Civil Rights Foundation, $22.5M to the West Side Community Fund and $5M for the Callen-Lorde Center for Excellence in Sexual Health.

It also promised to invest $32M in childcare, student debt and medical debt assistance, provide rent support for Broadway workers and purchase $20M in Broadway tickets for underserved families.

Despite those pledges, the joint venture received repeated pushback from the No Times Square Casino Coalition, which included the influential Broadway League.

“This was a vote to protect the magic of Broadway for the one hundred thousand New Yorkers who depend on it for their livelihoods, and for the tens of millions who come from around the world to experience it,” Jason Laks, president of The Broadway League and member of the group, said in a statement. “A casino can go anywhere, but Broadway only lives here.”

An aging 1.7M SF office building currently sits at 1515 Broadway, where the casino was planned. SL Green had previously looked to offload the Times Square asset.

“We’ve built strong relationships with a community that is eager for progress, and we hope that those who opposed this project — both in the public and private sectors — will now bring the same energy and resources to solving the very real challenges facing Times Square,” a Caesars Palace Times Square spokesperson said in a statement.

In an effort to get support from the community, the Silverstein team offered to funnel $400M of revenue to local nonprofits Win, Hudson Guild, Covenant House and Rethink Food over the course of the casino's first 20 years in operation. It also promised to buy tickets to Broadway and off-Broadway shows and spend millions on gift certificates to local restaurants and businesses.

Before the meeting to determine the fate of The Avenir, Silverstein executives pushed for a delay, claiming in a Wednesday morning statement they weren't given enough time to respond to additional questions from the CAC. 

“Despite the Avenir team working in good faith throughout the process to respond to questions and concerns and amend our proposal as needed, last night at 10:50 p.m. the Community Advisory Committee made a very significant request and our team has not been given a chance to consider this request before today’s vote,” a spokesperson for The Avenir said in a statement. “This action taints the CAC process and today’s vote should be postponed.”

Silverstein proposed to build 2,000 housing units near the site, including 550 affordable units, an increase from 500 affordable units in a previous proposal. The developers also offered additional sweeteners before the meeting in response to concerns, including promises to hire a certain number of local workers and provide trained security on public streets and additional transportation options.

Adams' representative, Nabeela Malik, read a statement from the mayor expressing his “disappointment” that the vote was held two weeks before the Sept. 30 deadline.

Following the vote, Silverstein Properties Chief Operating Officer Dino Fusco said in a statement that the developer is “disappointed that our West Side elected officials didn’t see a path forward for The Avenir project.”

Six other casino bids still await their fate. Just one other is in Manhattan — Soloviev Group and Mohegan’s $11B Freedom Plaza plan on the East Side. A vote is scheduled for Sept. 22. It faces an uphill battle considering Levine's opposition to a casino in Manhattan, but the other three members of the CAC will come from different politicians than the ones SL Green and Silverstein hoped to convince.

The proposals that win approval from their CACs will go to the state Gaming Facility Location Board, which will decide the winners of three downstate casino licenses. Decisions are expected to be made by the end of the year.

UPDATE, SEPT. 17, 3:30 P.M. ET: This story has been updated to include a statement from Caesars Palace Times Square.