Mogul’s Manhattan Casino Pitch: A Venue People Won’t Hate

Joining the pack of millionaires and billionaires vying for the right to build a casino in New York City is now Larry Silverstein, the real estate magnate who took over much of the World Trade Center site after the September 11 terrorist attacks. redeveloped.

Mr. Silverstein, 92, has never owned or invested in a casino. But he manages a site on 11th Avenue and 41st Street, four blocks west of Times Square, which he says is perfect because it borders several neighborhoods but is not central to any of them. For that reason, his team argues, residents’ neck hairs are less likely than other locations to be raised.

For casino expertise, he teams up with Watche Manoukian, a businessman based in London who owns Parx Casino in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, that state’s most profitable location.

In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Silverstein suggested his bid was largely selfless: New York State, he said, needs tax revenue to support the transit system on which New York’s economy depends. Casinos can offer it, and as a major landlord, he invests in the future of the city.

“We see it as a real need that the community, the city and Albany have,” said Mr. Silverstein, the president of Silverstein Properties. “Will it be profitable? I assume so, as this has generally been the case with casinos in general.”

It’s a new argument in a crowded, well-funded field of competitors teeming with unique pitches (one proposal involves a roller coaster, the other a Ferris wheel). About 10 teams are expected to bid for one of up to three full casino licenses in the region.

The field includes SL Green Realty Corporation, which calls itself the city’s largest commercial landlord and plans to build a casino in Times Square with Caesars Entertainment; the Hudson Yards developer Related Companies and Wynn Resorts, which have proposed a casino on Manhattan’s Far West Side; the hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen, owner of the New York Mets and has made an offer with Hard Rock for a casino adjacent to the team’s Queens Stadium; and Las Vegas Sands, which plans to build a casino in Nassau County.

Some people involved in the bidding process expect two of the three available licenses to go to Resorts World New York City at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens and the Empire City Casino in Yonkers. The two so-called racinos, or slot machine parlors attached to horse racing, are seeking full casino licenses.

“We think one is going to Yonkers,” said Marty Burger, the CEO of Silverstein Properties. “And one goes to Aqueduct, and the third is up for grabs.”

State officials have not set a deadline for submitting bids, and the approval process is expected to last until next year. But Mr. Silverstein’s announcement is likely one of the last major proposals to be unveiled before formal bidding begins.

Mr Cohen has not revealed his proposal, but some details are beginning to leak. It involves turning a parking lot into a 25-acre park with a casino and connections to Flushing Bay, with a design by SHoP Architects, the company that designed Barclays Center, according to one person who saw the proposal.

On Wednesday, on the 38th floor of 7 World Trade Center, which Silverstein Properties owns and is headquartered in, business leaders presented local elected officials about their project, a 1.8 million square foot development called the Avenir.

Co-designed by Nancy Ruddy of the CetraRuddy architectural firm, the building would consist of two 46-story towers connected by a skybridge and resting on an eight-story podium. The development would house at least one hotel, about 100 social housing units, a penthouse performance hall and, at the base, the casino.

Like the related companies’ proposal, the Silverstein casino would be near the Javits Convention Center and the steady stream of people it draws to events.

Political sentiment in Manhattan remains an obstacle.

“I don’t feel like actual voters or people who live here are going to get an impulse for a casino in Manhattan,” said Liz Krueger, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Finance Committee.

State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Councilman Erik Bottcher, whose districts include the proposed site, attended the meeting on Wednesday. Both declined to comment on the proposal.

Casinos are a recently discovered interest for Mr. Silverstein. In 2017, he told luxury real estate publication Mansion Global that he didn’t like gambling. “I don’t go to racetracks,” he said. ‘I don’t go to the casinos. I don’t do any of that, but I enjoy buying real estate.”

On Thursday, Mr. Silverstein said his own aversion to gambling is irrelevant.

“My personal preferences are secondary to the needs of the community at large,” he said.