I covered New York Mets owner Steve Cohen’s “visioning session” for a new casino-plus-other-stuff-but-mostly-a-casino development on Saturday for Hell Gate. And as with most of these things staged by developers, it turned out to be equal parts fact-finding about what local residents would like to see and PR campaign for why the project absolutely must happen, cost and legality be damned:
The presentation included very little information about Cohen’s actual plans—the man himself put in a cameo but stuck to generalities—preferring to stick to open-ended questions about what local residents would like to see built; handwritten suggestions from the masses included a “jobs training center,” “soapbox derby track,” and “community cannabis gardens.” (There were a lot of Post-its, but a quick scan of those on display revealed no one actively requesting a casino.) These were accompanied by some more subtly coercive elements, such as video screens asking what people think of the Citi Field environs today and what they would like to see in the future, displaying sample word clouds highlighting “barren” and “empty” for the before scenario and “welcoming” and “community” for a Cohen-redeveloped future.
“It’s kind of a push poll, in that it’s presupposing that you want something done,” said one Mets fan from Great Neck who gave his name only as Tom. “There’s a smorgasbord of possibilities, and they’re all nice, and they all sound interesting. But you don’t see the word ‘casino’ anywhere, and everybody knows that’s what this is about.”
The problem with a casino — aside from the fact that it would bring more car traffic to an area that’s already badly snarled when there are Mets games or tennis matches at the nearby U.S. Open or soccer matches at the soon-to-be-built-maybe nearby NYC F.C. stadium — is that it’s currently illegal to build one on the stadium parking lots that Cohen has in mind for the project, since those are technically public parkland. This means that the state legislature would need to pass a law to okay the plan, which means convincing a bunch of elected officials from all over the state that the parking lots are a blight upon the land that cannot stand, and which must be replaced by new parks/cannabis gardens/oh-did-we-forget-to-mention-a-casino?
The casino approval process itself was spelled out in a Request For Applications issued last week by the state Gaming Facility Location Board, and involves applications first to go to the location board, then through a community advisory committee, then zoning approvals, then back to the location board, so nothing is likely to be final for a couple of years. That gives Cohen plenty of time to try to build a groundswell for his casino dreams, or at least the appearance of one to counter the community groups that are already opposing it — not to mention to figure out what, if anything, he would pay to the city for the right to build on public land, on top of the $500 million minimum bid to the state for a casino license. Gentlemen, start your lobbyists.
Some photos from the event, including those 100% unbiased word clouds:
I agree with invinting on the first word cloud picture. Granted I haven’t been to Citi Field and I’m not sure that is an actual word but definitely invinting.
OMG I totally missed that — hilarious.
“Actve” is pretty good too.
I don’t know about you, Neil, but if there’s anything I associate with casinos, it’s active, healthy families.