The Manhattan real estate firm Silverstein Properties detailed plans for an ambitious gambling, hotel and housing complex that would place a casino beneath two new 46-floor skyscrapers at a currently boarded-up plot in Hell’s Kitchen.
The blueprint is one of at least 10 new proposals in a high-stakes state-run process launched this year that could deliver up to three downstate casino licenses.
Silverstein’s bid, which until Friday had been rumored but not confirmed by the firm, is one of at least six in Midtown Manhattan, where community pushback to the casino plans has been particularly fierce.
Silverstein said it aimed to build a nearly 2-million-square-foot project at a plot between W. 40th St. and W. 41st St. and 11th Ave. and Galvin Ave., near the gleaming Javits Center.
The project, dubbed the Avenir, would include a 1,000-seat performance venue at the top of one of the towers, which would be connected by a skybridge. A 600,000-square-foot gambling and restaurant complex would sit at ground-level, Silverstein said.
Silverstein said it was partnering with Greenwood Gaming and Entertainment and affiliates, which runs Parx Casino in Pennsylvania, on the bid.
The project would include 1,000 hotel rooms and 100 affordable apartments units, Silverstein said, noting that the local community board, Manhattan Community Board 4, aims to increase more affordable housing in the area.
But it was hardly clear if the housing promise would win over the board, which has been hostile to casino bids in the area. The board did not immediately reply to requests for comment for this story.
A news release issued by Silverstein on Friday morning sought to frame the bid as a much-needed housing opportunity for the city and described the project as “shovel-ready.”
“Our City and State face a confluence of historic challenges right now,” Larry Silverstein, the chair of Silverstein Properties, who played a major role in redeveloping the World Trade Center site after 9/11, said in a statement.
“These include a housing crisis, public safety challenges, budget shortfalls, and a commercial real estate market in transition,” he added. “We need to work with State and local leaders to do everything we can to make New York the best place to live, work, and visit. We’ve done it before, and I am confident we can do it again
His firm has already built 549 affordable units on W. 42nd St., said Lisa Silverstein, Silverstein’s vice chair.
“The Avenir is an opportunity to create much needed affordable housing, jobs, and economic development, along with many neighborhood improvements in an isolated and often-overlooked part of the City,” she said in a statement.
The state launched its sweepstakes for three $500 million downstate casino licenses in January. Two permits are expected to go to existing so-called racinos in Yonkers and southeast Queens, leaving the remaining developers angling for the final license.
The process is expected to play out over at least the next year and a half.
Locations where bidders have also worked to plot casinos include the Citi Field area, the Trump Golf Links in the Bronx, the Hotel Pennsylvania site near Penn Station, Coney Island, Hudson Yards, Saks Fifth Avenue, a plot near the UN building, a Times Square tower, and the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Long Island.