The owners of the New York Mets reportedly wanted to build a casino next to Citi Field, according to New York Post report.
Sterling Equities, the real estate company operated by Mets owner Fred Wilpon and family, proposed a casino in September 2011 and offered $100 million to the City of New York to buy 62 acres for the site, the paper said.
Sterling Equities also secured the Shinnecock Indian nation to operate the casino. Live-dealer casinos aren’t legal in New York except on tribal lands, killing the project, according to the report. Sterling received 23 of the 62 requested acres in June to build a $3 billion entertainment complex.
“The submission that included a gaming use was quickly dismissed as unviable,” a spokesman with the city’s Economic Development Corp. told the Post. “A different plan is now moving through the approvals process for a project that will create a dynamic new destination, hundreds of units of affordable housing, and thousands of jobs.”
The Mets declined to comment on the casino report.