Source: Kevin Mazur / Getty
If Jay-Z‘s proven anything over his career it’s that he loves to roll the dice on big projects, and now he’s attempting to get in on the gambling game as he prepares to bid on a new casino in Midtown Manhattan.
Page Six is reporting that Jay-Z and Roc Nation have joined the efforts of SL Green and Caesars Entertainment to open up a brand spanking new casino in Times Square, New York, and now we want that project to actually happen. The new partnership is expected to be announced on Monday (Dec. 12) as a half-dozen other teams are expected to submit their own proposals for a full-scale operating casino at SL Green’s 1515 Broadway office tower in Midtown, Manhattan.
Although details have yet to be spelled out, Jay-Z and his team are expected to oversee entertainment programming at 1515 Broadway and at other SL Green properties at the “Crossroads of the World.” The city’s largest commercial landlord, SLG has interests in six Times Square properties with a total of more than four million square feet.
In a statement, Jay-Z said, “New York is the epicenter of culture. We have the opportunity to create a destination at the heart of the true crossroads of the word. My partnership with SL Green and Caesars has all the promise and commitment to economic opportunity, growth and enrichment for the community and everyone that visits the Empire State.”
Already being dubbed the Caesars Palace Times Square, the new casino would actually only occupy eight floors of the 54 tower building on Broadway. Still, that’s pretty damn impressive and will surely lead to many people losing their savings and kids’ college funds. Should be fun.
The casino floors would also house restaurants and entertainment uses. Holliday estimated that the “boutique”-size casino might occupy as little as 250,000 square feet of floor space, a postage stamp compared with typical, sprawling gaming floors in Atlantic City or Las Vegas.
A new, approximately 800-room, five-star hotel would be created in the building above them. Holliday said he was “not yet prepared” to address how the tower’s office tenants, including Paramount Global’s headquarters, would be affected.
Just because Jay-Z is involved, we’re hoping his team wins the bid and brings a casino to Times Square. Whether or not that actually happens remains to be seen, but we riding with Hov on this one.
What do y’all think? Let us know in the comments section below.