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New York Mets proprietor Steve Cohen is partnering with Onerous Rock Worldwide on a proposal to construct an $8 billion on line casino and leisure advanced on a 50-acre parking zone in Queens subsequent to the Citi Area baseball stadium.
Whereas Cohen’s plans to construct a on line casino have been recognized for months, the main points of his proposal, together with affirmation of his companions, had been launched for the primary time Tuesday. The hedge fund billionaire is vying with almost a dozen different candidates for considered one of solely three coveted state licenses to construct a full-scale on line casino in downstate New York.
If Cohen is granted the license, he plans to companion with Onerous Rock and SHoP Architects to construct the gaming advanced, which is being known as Metropolitan Park. It might function 20 acres of newly constructed public park area designed by panorama architect agency Field Operations, which helped develop the Excessive Line in Manhattan and Freshkills Park in Staten Island. It might additionally embrace new athletic fields, a renovated mass-transit station and a “Queens meals corridor,” a Cohen spokesperson stated in a press release.
The brand new gaming advanced would create 15,000 everlasting and building jobs, Cohen stated.
Cohen has employed greater than a half-dozen lobbying companies and spent hundreds of thousands on periods with the group to solicit suggestions and assist from the neighborhoods surrounding Citi Area. However he faces vital obstacles to getting Metropolitan Park constructed. The proposed on line casino web site sits on what’s technically state-owned parkland, and the legislature would want to move a invoice permitting annexation of the land. Such a invoice was launched in final yr’s legislative session however hasn’t been thought of for a vote.
Even when Cohen had been to get the laws handed, he’d face nonetheless extra obstacles. After bidders submit their on line casino proposals, any plan should obtain approval from a majority of members of a siting board made up of native elected officers from the district the place the potential on line casino could be positioned. Then, a state gaming-location board would take into account whether or not to grant one of many three attainable licenses.
For Cohen, who has a web price of $13.9 billion, in accordance with the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the attainable upside is definitely worth the threat.
By 2025, a Queens on line casino may generate $1.9 billion in income yearly, in accordance with a study from Spectrum Gaming.
The state has but to set a deadline for when potential on line casino bids are due, or when it should make its resolution on which bidders are granted a license.
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