Las Vegas Sands Eyes Casino For NY's Long Island
25.08.2023 - 14:19
/ skift.com
/ Marina Bay
/ Sherry Sun
/ Long
Las Vegas Sands is pursuing a multi-billion flagship casino, entertainment and hospitality development following its agreement to purchase a long-term lease over the home to the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, opened in 1972 on Long Island in New York. This would be the company’s first entertainment project in the U.S. since it sold its Las Vegas properties last year.
Pending approvals from the Nassau County legislature, Sands will acquire control of up to 80 acres in Nassau County. Pre-pandemic, Long Island saw more than 9 million visitors annually, according to Nassau County Executive Laura Curran.
Casino gaming is planned to represent less than 10 percent of the development’s total footprint. Proposed plans for the Nassau Coliseum include four and five-star hotels, celebrity chef restaurants, and a world-class performance venue in honor of the Nassau Coliseum’s live music legacy.
As opposed to some of its competitors, Sands’ ambitions look to bring tourists and meeting professionals outside of the obvious choice of Manhattan, some 30 miles to the east on Long Island. New York City is still struggling to return its tourism and meetings business to pre-pandemic levels, pulling out the stops with new marketing campaigns. But Sands is confident in its ability to make Nassau County a sought-after destination.
Las Vegas Sands is a developer and operator of world-class integrated resorts, which refers to casinos that integrate some combination of accommodations, entertainment, retail, fine dining and convention facilities. Despite being U.S.-based, Sands has no exposure to the domestic market after selling its stakes in Vegas when Apollo Management purchased The Venetian Resort for $6.25 billion in early 2022. Its current portfolio consists entirely of casino hotels in Asia, with five in Macau and Marina Bay Sands (MBS) in Singapore.
Rob Goldstein, CEO and chairman of Sands, believes that the Sands proposal can drive outsized tourism into Nassau and transform the county.
“Our bid is very much traditional on the thinking of LVS large-scale with numerous non-gaming assets, lots of meeting space, probably 400,000 square per foot new space,” said Goldstein on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call recently.
Sands stands out from other hopeful casino developers focusing their sites on New York City itself for potential entertainment developments. Several of these are also pivoting poker tables to the back of their proposals to highlight economic benefits from tourism and community impact.
Related Companies, the developer behind Hudson Yards in midtown Manhattan, was first to team up with Wynn Resorts to propose transforming the undeveloped train yard next to the Jacob Javits Convention Center.