Holding all the cards: Fate of Queens’ casino bidders rests with newly-appointed committees

Resorts World New York City and Metropolitan Park, two separate bids to bring a casino to Queens, will soon be reviewed by their respective community advisory committees. Rendering via RWNYC

By Jacob Kaye

The local committees charged with reviewing bids from each of the developers hoping to snag one of the three downstate casino licenses up for grabs began to be formed this week, including the committees set to evaluate the two separate casino bids in Queens.

Nearly all vacancies on the eight different Community advisory committees, including those tasked with reviewing Metropolitan Park next to Citi Field and Resorts World New York City in South Queens, were filled on Tuesday, according to the state’s Gaming Commission.

The committees will serve as the initial reviewers for the respective proposals ahead of a final review from the Gaming Commission, which is expected to hand out each of the three casino licenses by the end of the year.

The formulation of the committees comes around a week after each of the eight bidders submitted their individual applications – which cost each bidder $1 million – to the commission.

Each of the committees feature an appointee put on the CAC by the governor, the mayor, the local state senator, the local assemblymember, the local borough president and the local city councilmember. The elected officials charged with making appointments for the Queens CACs mostly appointed themselves.

Each CAC will hold public hearings on their respective proposal and, by Sept. 30, issue a vote to either approve or reject the plan they reviewed. In order to get an approval, casino bidders must receive “yes” votes from four of their committee’s six members.

The Gaming Commission will only consider granting a license to the proposals that were approved by their CAC.

That shouldn't necessarily prove to be an issue for Queens’ bidders.

Both developers’ CACs are mostly made up of officials who have praised the projects in the past.

Three of the six members of Metropolitan Park’s CAC have already issued public statements in support of the $8 billion proposal backed by Steve Cohen, the billionaire owner of the New York Mets. Two of the remaining three members were appointed by elected officials who have generally been supportive of the casino bidding process.

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, State Assemblymember Larinda Hooks and City Councilmember Francisco Moya all appointed themselves to Metropolitan Park’s CAC. Governor Kathy Hochul appointed Gregory Anderson, who serves as her deputy director of state operations, and Mayor Eric Adams appointed Lin Zeng, who serves as the director of the Department of City Planning’s Queens office.

State Senator Jessica Ramos, the final appointing authority for Metropolitan Park’s CAC, had yet to name an appointee on Tuesday. Ramos, who refused to grant Cohen a needed land use permission for his project last year, did not respond to the Eagle’s request for comment. The lawmaker who recently finished ninth in the 11-person Democratic primary race for mayor told Crain’s New York Business that her lack of an appointment was related to a lack of knowledge – she didn’t know the appointment was due this week, the outlet reported.

Richards, Hooks and Moya have long been boosters of Cohen’s proposal, which, in addition to the casino, includes plans to build a hotel, a live music venue, restaurants, retail space, a convention center and open space.

When Metropolitan Park came before the City Council earlier this year in search of several land use permissions, Moya said that the proposal “deserves the opportunity to compete in the established process for one of the new gaming licenses,” while touting the jobs its developers expect to create through the construction and operation of the casino and entertainment complex.

Hooks was an early backer of the project, appearing at various town halls hosted separately by Ramos, Cohen and local community boards. Before being elected, the now-freshman assemblymember spoke in fervent support of the project at several of the town halls.

After her election, Hooks quickly introduced a parkland alienation bill to allow Cohen to build Metropolitan Park on Citi Field’s parking lot, a city-owned plot of land that is technically designated as parkland. The legislation was passed by the Assembly earlier this year – its accompanying Senate bill was introduced by Queens State Senator John Liu, who backed the legislation in the upper house after Ramos refused to introduce it.

Richards has also been supportive of Metropolitan Park, praising their effort to “[create] a plan that would enrich local constituents’ lives” while recommending they be granted a zoning change that came before his office last December.

Richards, who also appointed himself to Resorts World’s CAC, told the Eagle in January that he was “gung-ho” on ensuring both Queens bidders win casino licenses this year.

"We've made incredible progress as a borough post-COVID to create good-paying jobs and transform Queens into an unrivaled cultural and entertainment capital," Richards said in a statement to the Eagle on Tuesday. "Those efforts continue uninterrupted, and I look forward to reviewing these two projects on their merits through those lenses, along with my community advisory committee counterparts, in the coming weeks."

Resorts World New York City and Metropolitan Park, two separate bids to bring a casino to Queens, will soon be reviewed by their respective community advisory committees. Renderings via Metropolitan Park 

Like Metropolitan Park’s CAC, four of the six members of Resorts World’s CAC have publicly praised the project, which would see the Malaysian-based company pursue a $5 billion expansion of its current racino near John F. Kennedy International Airport.

In addition to Richards, State Senator James Sanders and State Assemblymember Stacey Pheffer Amato appointed themselves to Resorts World’s CAC. Hochul appointed her deputy director of intergovernmental affairs on Long Island, Stevens Martinez, to the CAC, while Adams appointed Nicole Garcia, who serves as the Queens borough commissioner of the city’s Department of Transportation.

City Councilmember Adrienne Adams, whose district includes Resorts World, appointed Betty Braton, the chair of Community Board 10, to serve on the CAC.

Sanders, Pheffer Amato and Bratton have praised Resorts World in the past. Braton said the racino had been with the neighborhood “in good times and tough times…giving both financial support and their time to this community,” when the company announced its expansion plans last year.

Pheffer Amato said during a press event at Resorts World in January that she “love[s] to gamble” and that she’s “a frequent person in this casino.”

Also in January, Sanders said in a statement that he was looking “forward to working with RWNYC to ensure our communities reap the full benefits” of their proposal.

And there will be a lot of money to go around.

As part of the application process, all bidders submitted their proposal’s expected revenue to the Gaming Commission.

Metropolitan Park said that it expects to bring in $3.9 billion annually after its third year of operation. Resorts World, which already brings in around $1 billion per year, said that it expects to boost its revenue to over $2 billion annually by 2027.