And the casino license would be a much, much larger gift to Soloviev. The massive light installation, expected to cost $1.5 million, would be “a gift to New York,” an executive from the Soloviev Group told The New York Times. Last week, in an attempt to woo a resistant community board, the Soloviev Group, whose initial pitch for a giant ferris wheel didn’t go over very well, announced that it would install 17,000 fiber optic flower lights on the long-vacant lot by the U.N. Possibly just because the other billionaires are doing it. Possibly in anticipation of a potential end to the bidding process, which could come as early as 2023 (though the state hasn’t announced anything definite yet). The proposals started out a little underwhelming - flashy-but-not-too-flashy renderings with a few hotel towers thrown in, locations that made a certain kind of sense: Coney Island, Times Square, Hudson Yards.īut lately, the billionaires have been upping their game. It’s up to the applicants to figure out what kind of proposal and community perks package will persuade the committee to pick them, which leaves a lot of room for creativity.

They’ll need to win over a six-member community advisory committee, then spend $500 million on the license and another $500 million in capital investment. Right now, real-estate giants like Related and SL Green, hedge-funder/Mets owner Steve Cohen, real estate scion Steven Soloviev, and Coney Island magnate Joe Sitt have all thrown down a $1 million application fee to be in the running. Owning a casino is widely acknowledged to be like printing money ( unless you’re Donald Trump, but even then, also, sort of), something that few among the obscenely wealthy business types can resist. It’s been a few months since New York opened the bidding process for the three downstate casino licenses, and billionaires have spent much of that time falling all over themselves to win New York City’s.

Soloviev’s first proposal featured a giant ferris wheel, since scrapped in favor of a flower light installation.

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