Cohen’s casino gets green light in Albany
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The State Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that will allow Mets owner Steve Cohen to freely pursue a state casino license, putting an end to a years-long fight for the land-use permission. AP file photo by Seth Wenig
By Jacob Kaye
In the state house, Steve Cohen appears to always win.
The State Senate voted 54-5 late Tuesday to grant Cohen, the owner of the New York Mets, a crucial permission that will allow him to submit his application to the state to build an $8 billion casino and entertainment complex on Citi Field’s parking lot, unencumbered by land use restrictions.
The vote, which a year ago appeared to be an improbability, comes after Cohen spent years lobbying officials in Albany in the hopes that they would “alienate” the 50-acre Citi Field parking lot, which is owned by the city, leased to the Mets and technically designated as parkland.
The parkland alienation bill, which grants Cohen and Hard Rock the right to build their proposed Metropolitan Park complex on the land should they be given a casino license by the state’s Gaming Commission later this year, was passed by the Assembly earlier this month now heads to Governor Kathy Hochul’s desk, where it likely will be signed into law.
While the bill itself won’t allow Cohen to build a casino, it will put him in a prime position to compete for one of the three downstate casino licenses the commission plans to hand out by the end of 2025. The lucrative licenses are being sought by a little less than a dozen other developers, including the owners of Resorts World New York City in South Queens.
“After years of community engagement, thousands of conversations, and the leadership of our local elected officials, we are one step closer to transforming these asphalt lots into something our neighbors can truly be proud of,” Cohen said in a statement. “This is just the start, and we are committed to working closely with the community and fans every step of the way.”
The bill’s passage is a major victory for Cohen, who at one point appeared to be without an ally in the Senate.
State Senator Jessica Ramos, whose district includes a bulk of the casino proposal, said last year that she wouldn’t introduce the parkland alienation bill in Albany’s upper house. After holding multiple town halls, commissioning a poll and conducting a survey, Ramos said that a majority of her constituents didn’t want a casino in the district.
Though former Assemblymember Jeff Aubry and his successor, Assemblymember Larinda Hooks, introduced Cohen’s parkland alienation bill in the Assembly, without a Senate counterpart, the bill would go nowhere.
After searching for months, Cohen found a partner in Senator John Liu, whose district includes around 12-acres of the proposal.
In exchange for Liu’s introduction of the bill, Cohen agreed to explore building a project dubbed “Flushing Skypark,” a pedestrian bridge built over Flushing Creek that would connect Downtown Flushing to Willets Point, the redeveloping neighborhood next to the potential casino site. There are few public details about the longshot proposal, including its cost or timeframe. Cohen doesn’t own the land either side of the bridge would be built on and it’s unclear if the city would give Cohen permission to build the bridge over the Van Wyck Expressway, which runs alongside the creek.
Ultimately, Cohen will be responsible for deciding whether or not the project could be built – if he decides against it, he’s committed to donating $100 million to Flushing Meadows Corona Park over a 10-year period.
“This legislation allows the Metropolitan Park proposal to now be submitted for consideration by the State Gaming Commission for the awarding of a casino license,” Liu said in a statement on Tuesday. “The proposal would create thousands of jobs for local residents and opportunities for local small businesses, and provide over a billion dollars in transit, park, and other infrastructure improvements.”
While the bill passed with overwhelming support from the Senate, five lawmakers voted against it, including Ramos.
From the floor of the Senate on Tuesday, Ramos said she was shooting down the bill “in defense of a vision of economic development that is dignified, sustainable and rooted in the needs of working people, not to the whims of a billionaire.”
Ramos said she was opposed to the idea that a casino was the only opportunity her district was being given for major economic development.
“That is not the kind of development that my community deserves,” she said. “Casinos may bring lights, but they also bring shadows. They extract wealth from working class communities. They prey on addiction and often displace the very people they claim to uplift, while casinos generate revenue for operators, the neighborhoods around them often suffer from increased economic instability, public health concerns and a rise in problem gambling.”
The senator, who has mounted a longshot bid for New York City mayor, also criticized Cohen, whose hedge fund has a “well-documented history of regulatory violations.”
“This is not about a building or a parcel of parkland – it's about power,” Ramos said. “It's about whether communities like mine are treated as partners or as pawns.”
The Senate’s parkland alienation bill also got no votes from Brooklyn Senator Jabari Brisport, and Manhattan Senators Cordell Cleare and Liz Krueger.
Queens State Senator Joe Addabbo, the chair of the Committee on Racing, Gaming and Wagering, also voted against the bill.
Addabbo, who did not explain his vote on Tuesday, has long been a supporter of Resorts World, which once was a part of his district. Addabbo’s Assembly counterpart, Stacey Pheffer Amato, who herself is an ally to Resorts World, also voted against the bill in the lower house.
The bill now awaits Hochul’s signature. A spokesperson for the governor’s office said Hochul “will review the legislation."
