The public will get an opportunity to weigh in on a crucial part of the proposed casino in Uniondale when the Hempstead Town Board holds a hearing Tuesday on rezoning the site.
Though developer Las Vegas Sands announced last month that it will not seek a casino license from New York State to build a new gaming resort on the county-owned Nassau Coliseum site, Newsday reported that the Nevada-based company is seeking a third party to take over its bid.
Applications are due June 27 and environmental reviews and rezonings must be completed before Sept. 30, according to the New York State Gaming Facility Location Board, which expects to approve up to three commercial casino licenses in the state by Dec. 1.
Opponents of the casino have expressed concerns about potential crime and negative impacts to the environment and questioned its economic benefits. Supporters have said it will bring jobs and economic activity to an underutilized space.
The town board’s hearing on the rezoning will begin at 2 p.m. at Town Hall and then adjourn and continue at 7 p.m.
The proposed rezoning largely follows requests made by the Sands in its Draft Environmental Impact Statement. It would allow a gaming facility to be built on the site, where games of chance are played and wagers are made.
The gaming complex proposal calls for building 3.7 million square feet for meeting and conference areas, restaurants, retail stores, hotel, casino and an entertainment venue, according to the DEIS. It also would create 12,450 parking spaces, mostly in parking garages. Newsday reported that the price tag for the development has risen from $4 billion when first proposed two years ago to $7.6 billion in the recently released Final Environmental Impact Statement.
The purpose of the rezoning, according to the town’s proposal, is “to encourage comprehensively planned gaming facilities and associated uses under a unified plan of development … [and] to encourage economic growth and tourism in Nassau County, which may include a gaming facility that would serve as a local and regional draw.”
The rezoning would create the Mitchel Field Integrated Resort District and would allow a developer to build a 280-foot-tall hotel. At that height it would come close to Nassau County’s tallest building, the 19-story, 299-foot Nassau University Medical Center. Existing zoning at the site caps a hotel height at 100 feet.
Proposals to redevelop Mitchel Field have sputtered in the past. The late Charles Wang proposed a $3.8 billion project that would have included a 60-story tower as well as retail and commercial space around a renovated Coliseum. The Town of Hempstead, in 2010, rezoned the area but allowed much less development than Wang had sought, and the project was abandoned.
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