A top international gaming industry player from Las Vegas, a Sullivan County racetrack and video slots operator and Westchester County developer Louis Cappelli in partnership with Connecticut”™s Mohegan tribe are among 22 entities vying for four new casino licenses the state will award this fall.
Twelve of the 22 applicants that paid initial $1 million application fees to the New York Gaming Facility Location Board reportedly have proposed casino sites in the Hudson Valley and Catskill region, where one or two of the four new upstate casinos will be located. The gaming facility board will also consider proposals for casinos in the Saratoga-Albany region and across a broad swath of western and central New York.
Nevada-based Caesars Entertainment Corp., which operates gaming resorts on four continents, wants to open a $750 million casino on a 121-acre site in the town of Woodbury in Orange Country. Adjacent to the Harriman Metro-North train station and Woodbury Common Premium Outlets, the site is well positioned to draw regular customers and international shoppers and tourists from New York City 50 miles to the south.
Caesars in a press release said it will lease the property from Rochester developer David Flaum and work with him to secure municipal approvals and permits for the project.
In Newburgh, Saratoga Harness Racing Inc., which operates the Saratoga Casino and Raceway, has proposed to build the Hudson Valley Casino & Resort on a 70-acre parcel. The $670 million development off Route 17K would include a 500-room hotel.
The Newburgh town board Thursday night approved the Saratoga company”™s casino concept, the Times Herald-Record of Middletown reported.
In Sullivan County, Empire Resorts Inc., which operates the Monticello Casino and Raceway, anted up the $1 million fee this week for Adelaar, the $750 million casino and resort complex planned for the former Concord Resort Hotel site. Empire and EPR Properties, the Kansas City-based developer that owns the approximately 1,700-acre Concord property, last year secured project approvals from the town of Thompson.
A former partner of both Empire and EPR, prominent Westchester developer Louis Cappelli apparently has not given up his ambition to build a casino in the Catskills after losing his stake in the main Concord property to EPR in a legal settlement four years ago.
Since then, Cappelli has looked to partner in Sullivan County with the Mohegan tribe of Connecticut, which operates Indian gaming facilities in its home state and in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
The gaming facility board in Albany said it received the $1 million fee from Concord Kiamesha L.L.C. and Mohegan Gaming New York L.L.C. The entities”™ filing was made by DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise & Wiederkehr L.L.P., the White Plains law firm that has represented Cappelli in the Concord and numerous other development projects.
Cappelli could not immediately be reached for comment.
