Could bid rejections open the door for a Nassau Hub casino?

Daily Point

With 2 proposals shot down, chances improve for remaining contenders

And then there were six.

Two of the state’s eight casino proposals failed to move forward Wednesday morning, as the individual Community Advisory Committees for the proposals for Times Square and for Manhattan’s West Side rejected the projects by a 4-2 vote.

Any proposal has to pass the CAC before the state's Gaming Facility Location Board and Gaming Commission are permitted to consider it for a license.

That leaves six other proposals vying for up to three licenses. Each of those plans will face its own CAC vote sometime before Sept. 30. Final license decisions are supposed to be made before the end of the year.

The negative votes could improve the chances for the remaining casino contenders, which include proposals in Coney Island, the Bronx, Manhattan’s East Side and Yonkers, along with two in Queens — at Aqueduct Racetrack and at Citi Field. The two existing racinos, Resorts World at Aqueduct and MGM Empire City in Yonkers, along with the Metropolitan Park proposal at Citi Field, are considered by many to be the top contenders.

But it’s also possible that if the pool continues to shrink, the location board and state Gaming Commission might not award all three licenses. A Gaming Commission spokesman confirmed that there’s no guarantee all of the state-approved licenses would be given, noting the process permits "up to three commercial casinos."

And if three licenses aren’t awarded in December, there is the possibility of a subsequent competition for additional casino licenses in the future.

Does that mean a full casino could still come to Long Island at some point?

"The whole calculus changes if there’s another license out there," said one observer with knowledge of the process.

The observer noted that it’s unlikely Las Vegas Sands would bid for the property around Nassau Coliseum, since Sands already pulled out of the licensing competition earlier this year. Sands tried to find an alternative bidder before the June application deadline — and ran out of time. But now that the Nassau Hub is zoned for gaming use, and an environmental impact review has already been completed, a new process could open the door for Sands to find a new partner that would want to take over its effort. And, the observer noted, a host of other casino companies — including those that did not bid, or those that were rejected by their CACs — could be interested in the Hub.

State officials have some precedent to consider. In 2014, the Gaming Facility Location Board awarded just three upstate casino licenses, even though it had the power to award up to four. Its licenses went to casinos in the Catskills, the Capital region and the Finger Lakes. But state officials then reopened bids for the fourth license and, in 2016, awarded that last upstate license to a proposal in the Southern Tier.

Could a similar scenario happen if fewer than three downstate licenses are awarded — and Long Island is left out?

"If there are still casino licenses left to be issued, that’s a matter for the legislature to determine how that gets handled," the Gaming Commission spokesman said.

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

Pencil Point

Sinking into semantics

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Final Point

Islip pols battle over airport funds

The ongoing political battles between Islip Town Supervisor Angie Carpenter and town board member John Lorenzo have now spilled over to risk the future of Long Island MacArthur Airport.

Toward the end of Tuesday’s lengthy town board meeting, an item on the agenda listed simply as “Appropriation Transfers” became anything but simple, when Lorenzo attempted to separate out $1.2 million in appropriations that were slotted for the ongoing effort to connect the airport terminal to the Long Island Rail Road’s Ronkonkoma station, potentially by moving the terminal to the northern end of the property.

The town has been seeking a developer to upgrade the terminal to add more flights and connect it with the LIRR. The funds discussed Tuesday would, according to Carpenter, further that process and allow it to remain on schedule. The town already has received proposals “from highly qualified firms with international reputations,” Carpenter said, and officials hope a decision will be made by the end of the year.

But on Tuesday, Lorenzo, who represents the district that includes the airport, attempted to separate the airport appropriation from others included in the agenda item and sought to table the airport expenditures, putting off their approval until an unspecified future meeting.

“Before any money is spent on this project, I think we pause, take a step back and find out what’s going on with all of our partners for this possible move of the north terminal,” Lorenzo said. “This is a generational project that’s going to affect my district and our town for decades to come. I think we should have as much information as we can before we move forward and spend more.”

In response, Carpenter invited airport Commissioner Rob Schneider to the podium, and inquired about the impact of a potential delay.

“Tabling the resolution, I believe, does cause some complications to the procurement process,” Schneider said, noting that investors would not want a “lack of certainty” around the project’s future. “I’m not sure what the outcome [would be], but it does not help to progress the project forward to table the resolution.”

Lorenzo argued that he hasn’t seen any “hard core evidence” that other pieces of the effort to develop the southern part of the Ronkonkoma Hub are moving forward, questioning the status of Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine’s efforts to develop the land just south of the train station.

But Carpenter said she met with Romaine earlier Tuesday and that he was still committed to the process.

“I think that we would be doing everyone — not just the airport or the town, but the region — a disservice not to move forward with this at this time,” Carpenter said. “I think it would be very foolish for us to table it.”

Lorenzo continued to push back, saying he wasn’t a “no,” but just wanted to “pump the brakes.” Schneider, however, said even a pause could “jeopardize” the project’s future.

After about 20 minutes of debate and discussion, Lorenzo’s pushback against the airport appropriation failed. In two separate votes, only he and fellow council member Michael McElwee Jr. voted together, first to table the effort, and then to oppose the appropriation itself. Carpenter, along with council members James P. O’Connor and Jorge Guadrón, voted in favor of the $1.2 million appropriation.

Carpenter told The Point she was glad the proposal moved forward, noting that a rejection “would have sent the wrong kind of message to the proposers.”

“Developers like to see that there is unity,” she said. “We’ve had a very professional, robust process that nobody can question. We did it right. And this keeps it moving.” 

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

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