Silverstein Joins Bidding for NYC Casino
WTC owner proposes 1.8M SF, two-tower hotel next to Javits Center.
Larry Silverstein just pushed a big pile of chips into the middle of the table at NYC’s biggest poker game: the bidding for one of three casino licenses that will be awarded in the metro area later this year.
Silverstein Properties, owner of the World Trade Center, has entered a bid to build a 1.8M SF casino-hotel complex—to be known as The Avenir—on a vacant lot at 41st Street and 11th Avenue, a site within walking distance of the Javits Center and a couple of blocks from the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel.
As with all of the other real estate titans who have entered the competition for NYC’s first full-scale gambling palaces, Silverstein is partnering with a well-known gaming giant: Greenwood Gaming and Entertainment, which owns Parx Casino in Bensalem, PA, the highest-grossing casino in Pennsylvania.
The Avenir—a French word that means “future”—will feature two 46-story towers atop a single eight-story podium, with the towers connected by a sky bridge.
The proposal includes 1,000 luxury hotel rooms, a 1,000-seat performance hall on a top floor, up to 12 restaurants and an unspecified number of residential units, of which at least 100 will be designated as affordable.
In an interview with the New York Times on Thursday, Silverstein suggested that the empty lot on 11th Avenue, which borders several neighborhoods but is central to none, will be the most acceptable proposal to its neighbors in the crowded field of high-profile bids.
However, the man who took over the operations of the World Trade Center in 2001 a week before the terrorist attack of September 11 and successfully redeveloped the 16-acre site after it was destroyed said his primary motive in making the casino proposal—Silverstein has never built a casino—is to help New York City recover from the pandemic.
Silverstein said he is joining the casino bidding because NYC needs the revenue to support its transit system, which has only recovered about 75% of its ridership in the wake of the pandemic. As a major landlord, Silverstein Properties is invested in the city’s future, he said.
“We do see it as a genuine need that the community has, the city and Albany,” Silverstein told the NY Times. “Will it be profitable? I presume so because, generally, this has been the case with casinos at large.”
In his announcement of the bid, Silverstein put it this way: “I’ve always said you should never bet against New York,” he said. “The City and State will come back bigger and better than ever before.”
The NYC real estate legend takes a seat at a poker game that has already drawn an all-star team of Manhattan’s real estate giants.
The bidding roster includes Related Cos., which has teamed up with Wynn Resorts on a proposal to build a casino on half of Hudson Yards; SL Green, which is partnering with Caesars Entertainment and Jay-Z’s Roc Nation on an entertainment complex in Times Square that would include a new Broadway theater; and Mets owner Steve Cohen, who wants to build a Hard Rock casino next to Citi Field.
The bidding queue also includes Saks Fifth Avenue parent Hudson’s Bay, which has proposed to redevelop the top floors of the department store, and Soloviev Group, which has proposed a casino on a lot it owns on First Avenue near the United Nations, a project that would include a Democracy Museum and one of the world’s largest Ferris wheels.
Thor Equities says it will to see Soloviev’s Ferris wheel bet and raise it with a roller coaster at a proposed casino on Coney Island; Vornado is readying a casino proposal for its Penn District redevelopment; and Las Vegas Sands has signed a 99-ground lease with the Nassau Coliseum to develop a casino in partnership with RXR Realty.
The stakes couldn’t be higher: most of the bidders expect the state to grant two of the three new casino licenses to two existing NYC metro gaming sites (they’ve got slots right now): Resorts World Casino in Queens and Empire City Casino in Yonkers, both known as “racinos” because they’re attached to horse racing tracks.
So, it’s likely to be winner-take-all for the rest of bidders, who each are putting up an ante in the form of a minimum $1B commitment to take a shot at this jackpot.