A bid to create a casino in the middle of Times Square appears to be dead in the water.
A community advisory committee voted no on Wednesday to move forward the casino bid from SL Green Realty Corporation, Caesars Entertainment and Roc Nation and Live Nation. The group planned to convert the existing 54-story office building at 1515 Broadway, which includes the Minskoff Theatre, the longtime home of The Lion King, as well as the Viacom headquarters, into the casino. The plans called to build the casino above the Broadway theater, as well as create a luxury hotel, restaurant and entertainment spaces in the building.
The advisory committee gave the project two yay votes and four nay votes. If it had been approved, the state’s Gaming Facilities Location Board would have considered the application for one of three possible entities granted a casino license. The proposal came as part of the State’s plan to have three new casinos built in the five boroughs of New York City.
The idea had drawn fierce backlash from The Broadway League, the trade association of theater owners, producers and general managers, who view the casino as hurting the Broadway industry and adding unwanted congestion to the already busy area. The League had assembled a coalition of partners opposing the casino, including IATSE, the Shubert Organization and local theater restaurants such as Sardi’s.
“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. A casino can go anywhere, but Broadway only lives here. We are so filled with gratitude for the committee members and the local elected officials—State Senator Liz Krueger, Assembly Member Tony Simone, Borough President Mark Levine and Council Member Erik Bottcher—who looked at the facts, listened to the residents and stood up for this neighborhood and the theater community,” Jason Laks, president of the Broadway League, said in a statement after the vote.
In recent weeks, Broadway playbills have included an insert, reading “Save Broadway,” and cautioning that the casino will cause Broadway attendance to drop, crime to rise and put theater and local restaurant and business jobs at risk. They asked theatergoers to push for a “no” vote.
However, Actors’ Equity, representing Broadway actors and stage managers, as well as Local 802, representing musicians, had been in support of the proposal because of the monthly job fairs the casino has promised to hold exclusively for those union members, as well as its proposed safety measures for Times Square.
The attacks had been heating up in the days leading up to the vote, with an anonymous party taking out a full page ad in the New York Post urging the New York attorney general’s office to conduct an investigation into the financial structure of the Shubert Foundation; which is a non-profit entity that owns the for-profit Shubert Organization, which itself owns 17 Broadway theaters, as well as their alliance with the charity Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids.
In addition to the casino itself, the plan was to create a Nobu hotel, comprising close to one thousand rooms, three restaurants with celebrity chefs including Daniel Boulud, Gordon Ramsay, Bobby Flay and Melba Wilson, a wellness retreat and nightclubs and entertainment programmed by Roc Nation. The plan was also to include the Caesars Sportsbook at The 40/40 Club, which would combine sports viewing and gaming with Jay-Z’s lounge.
The casino had been anticipated to bring in 3,800 permanent jobs with the majority filled by New Yorkers, as well as $23.2 billion in gross gaming revenue in its first 10 years of operation. The casino group also stated it would bring in more than $7 billion in city and state taxes and fees in the first 10 years and purported to bring in $26.7 billion for Broadway and outside hotels and restaurants.
The group had also committed $250 million to outside groups, including just over $80 million to Times Square Safety and Security, with a safety plan designed by former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, $15 million to the creation of a civil rights museum spearheaded by Rev. Al Sharpton and $20 million to Broadway tickets for underfunded families.
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