Tioga Downs May Be New York State’s Next Full Casino, If Jeff Gural’s License Is Approved
Tioga Downs owner Jeff Gural and his team of advisers appeared before the New York Gaming Facility Location Board on Thursday to make a second proposal about expanding his racetrack into a full casino. Gural’s plans were dashed in December 2014, when the Tioga Downs proposal for a Southern Tier casino license was turned down.
The plan is the same this time: to upgrade Tioga Downs from a racino into a full-fledged $195 million casino. Several key changes have been made to the basic plan, though. Jeff Gural hopes those changes are enough to address the concerns the Gaming Facility Location Board raised last December.
90-Minute Presentation
In his 90-minute presentation at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, Jeff Gural made a telling, yet polite, reference to the last licensing proposal meeting back then. He told the board members, “Fortunately, you made it easy to address where we fell short the last time. We’ve taken that report to heart.”
The new proposal includes a $32 million increase in equity for the development. The 161-room hotel is 18% larger than it was in the December plan. Also, a 12,000-seat outdoor concert arena has been included.
No Rival Applicants
Helping this time is the fact no other applicants are offering a plan. Though the siting board does not have to award a license, this time the license is either going to be awarded to Tioga Downs, or no one. The only developers which qualify to apply for the fourth gaming license (awarded in this process) in New York state are those in the Southern Tier.
Kevin Law Gives Praise
Kevin Law praised Jeff Gural for the proposal this time around. Law is the chairman of the Gaming Facility Location Board, as well as a president and CEO the Long Island Association. Back in December, he warned Gural and his people they needed to make significant changes to their proposal. He warned against simply putting “lipstick” on the old plan.
This time, Kevin Law sounded a much different tone. He said, “We didn’t want to see the same exact plan again. I think we’ve seen with their submittal and the presentation today is that it’s certainly more than just lipstick, and there were some significant changes.”
$107 Million in New Construction
The plan includes $107 million spent in new construction. About $40 million meant for equipment and fees, including licensing fees. Another $50 million would go towards integration of the facilities already standing with those yet to be erected.
When completed, the new Tioga Downs Casino would create 550 new direct jobs. The plan is to have 50 table games on the gaming floor and 1,000 slot machines on slots row.
Southern Tier’s Economic Plight
That depends on the Gaming Facility Location Board’s upcoming decision. This time, it sounds like Tioga Downs has cleared the necessary hurdles. Now it is a matter of whether the location board decides a fourth new casino makes economic sense or not. Jeff Gural and his team can do everything right and a Southern Tier casino still might not make economic sense.
Jeff Gural seems confident that won’t be the case, though. When asked about the economic incentive for the gaming authorities to license a casino in the region, Jeff Gural said, “I think it’s clear that (the board) recognizes how depressed the area is and how important it is to the governor and to everyone in the state that the Southern Tier gets a little shot in the arm.”
Update: December 2015
In a later hearing, Jeffrey Gural’s development team won approval for an expansion of Tioga Downs into a full casino facility. Members of the New York Gaming Commission praised the presentation, saying it addressed their issues in a much better fashion than the original plan. The amount of money designated for the expansion — and the financing behind the development plan — seemed to be on a much more solid footing.
Jeff Gural also owns a lease on the Meadowlands Racing Complex in New Jersey. Gural has lobbied for the right to open a North Jersey casino on the grounds of the Meadowlands, claiming it would be worth $400 million to $500 million a year to the state of New Jersey in tax revenues alone. How his ownership of a casino in the state of New York would affect his bid in New Jersey remains to be seen.
