It does not appear Broadway will be sharing the stage with a casino in the near future. The Caesars Palace bid for a location in Times Square is officially dead. A community advisory committee dealt the plan, backed by JAY-Z’s Roc Nation banner, a final blow on Wednesday, September 17, voting against the bid in a 4-2 decision, according to Crain’s. The Caesars proposal bet big on the casino’s potential tourism draw, promising “a better Times Square for everyone,” even the Broadway crowds, who fought hard to keep Caesars out of the Theater District.
In the end, however, the casino giant wasn’t able to gain much support from the community, especially not Broadway—the singularly New York institution only recently revived after a devastating pandemic hit. “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,” said Jason Laks, president of The Broadway League, a group of producers and theater owners who led the campaign against Caesars. “A casino can go anywhere, but Broadway only lives here.” The Caesars plan was one of two NYC casino bids killed by votes on Wednesday morning. Another, for a $7 billion hotel and casino called “The Avenir,” was struck down by an identical vote count.
These are solid omens for some of the other hotly contested casino proposals in NYC, like “The Coney,” a plan to essentially stack hundreds of thousands of square feet of casino floors, hotels, restaurants, and convention halls on top of the iconic amusement park(s) and boardwalk in Coney Island. That project has faced similar backlash from the community, who pulled up in droves to advisory committee hearings (some of which got loud and tense). The final public hearing for the Coney Island casino proposal was on September 10, and a committee is expected to vote on whether the plan should be sent to the Gaming Facility Location Board for review by September 30.
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