After more than two years of battling and millions spent on lobbying, the fourth and final casino project advanced on Tuesday in the high-stakes competition to open a gambling house in the New York City area.
The casino, the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Metropolitan Park in Queens, won unanimous approval in a crucial vote from a local committee to remain in contention for one of three casino licenses that New York State can award by the end of the year.
It joins three other bids — Resorts World in Queens, Empire City Casino by MGM Resorts in Yonkers and Bally’s Bronx — that advanced from an initial group of eight proposals. All four will be considered in December, first by the state’s Gaming Facility Location Board and then by its Gaming Commission.
The Hard Rock project was put forward by Steven A. Cohen, the billionaire owner of the New York Mets. He wants to build a $6.4 billion casino and resort on parking lots next to the team’s stadium, Citi Field, in the Willets Point neighborhood.
“While the Mets may not make the playoffs, we can consider this a home run for Citi Field and for Queens,” said Donovan J. Richards Jr., the Queens borough president, who is also a member of the community advisory committee that voted on the plan.
All six members of the committee voted in favor despite some resistance from residents and from State Senator Jessica Ramos, a Democrat who represents the area and who announced her objections to the project more than a year ago. Her representative on the committee, George Dixon, voted “yes” on Tuesday without explaining his decision.
The Hard Rock site would span 50 acres next to Citi Field, with a 1,000-room hotel, 5,000 slot machines and hundreds of gambling tables. It would also include an additional 25 acres of parks and open spaces.
The bidders have portrayed the casino projects as economic boons for their neighborhoods and beyond, claiming they will produce thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in tax revenue over the coming decades. Some unions, particularly those in the construction and hospitality industries whose workers would be employed by the casinos, have campaigned in favor of them.
To win over skeptical residents, the developers have also offered numerous sweeteners and community investments. The group behind Metropolitan Park said it would spend an additional $1.8 billion on local infrastructure upgrades.
In the past, claims of an economic windfall by casino groups elsewhere in the state have fallen short of their projections. When New York awarded four licenses a decade ago to operators upstate, the taxes they contributed and the gambling revenue they generated during their first years were less than their initial promises, the state comptroller said.
Pat Barrett, a cartoonist who lives in Jackson Heights, Queens, spoke out against the Hard Rock project at a recent public hearing, saying that casinos prey on addicts.
“We don’t actually need this profit-generating, money-sucking, culture-degrading type of engine,” Mr. Barrett said in an interview on Tuesday after the vote.
Four other proposed casinos were rejected earlier this month by their local advisory committees, including three in Manhattan. The decisions by the committees take into account local support for the developments, and opposition was most intense for the Manhattan projects.
The rejected proposals were Caesars Palace Times Square, the Avenir on Manhattan’s Far West Side, Freedom Plaza near the headquarters of the United Nations, and the Coney in Brooklyn. Several groups had proposed casinos but did not submit bids, including one atop Saks Fifth Avenue and another in Hudson Yards.
Two of the bids still in contention have been considered front-runners for licenses — Resorts World and Empire City — because they exist already as casino-like properties, with video lottery terminals but not table games.
Matthew Haag is a Times reporter covering the New York City economy and the intersection of real estate and politics in the region.
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