The Avenir’s appointed community advisory committee (CAC) swiftly voted 4-2 against the proposal on Wednesday morning, removing it from further consideration. Silverstein would have needed four affirmative votes to move on to the next round. All told, the meeting ran for less than 15 minutes.
Final votes from the CAC were:
Angel Vasquez: Yes
Richard Gottfried: No
Matthew Tighe, Chair: No
Madeleine McGrory: No
Nabeela Malik: Yes
Quentin Heilbroner: No
Avenir’s rejection was the second of the day, alongside Caesars Times Square approximately an hour earlier. That project’s CAC also featured Tighe and Gottfried, who voted against both projects. The same meeting room was used for both hearings.
Two of three Manhattan proposals are now defeated. Soloviev Group and Mohegan Gaming’s Freedom Plaza bid remains as the lone contender from New York City’s highest-profile borough from an economic and tourism perspective, although no vote date for that project has been set.
Silverstein did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the vote.
Many similarities between Avenir, Caesars hearings
The Avenir hearing featured many of the same hallmarks as Caesars in addition to location and CAC members. As with Caesars, the Avenir hearing started with a consideration of last-minute proposed amendments to the application. These included further changes to housing commitments and other provisions.
These amendments, however, did not post to the New York State Gaming Commission website until after the meeting concluded. They are dated 16 September on the website and 15 September in the 184-page submission. The committee spent little time discussing these amendments before rejecting them. Caesars also had its amendments quickly rejected.
But CAC member Angel Vasquez, appointed by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, spoke out against this amendment rejection and the process overall. He stated that the committee was “in conversations about the housing proposal” with Silverstein “up until last night”, and called those negotiations “incomplete”.
Fellow committee member Nabeela Malik echoed those sentiments. Malik was appointed by New York City Mayor Eric Adams and came with a prepared statement.
“As the mayor’s representative on this committee, I want to express my disappointment that today’s vote was scheduled earlier at the request of some CAC members,” Malik said. “By moving today’s vote forward, we have effectively lost two weeks of deliberation.”
The same statement was read to the Caesars committee by Laura Smith, also an Adams appointee. Neither Smith nor Malik specifically named the committee members who asked to move the votes. Gottfried, meanwhile, praised both the Avenir and Caesars CAC processes despite voting against both bids.
“It’s been as open and involved and fair of a process as I’ve seen in decades of involvement in state and local government,” Gottfried said at the Avenir hearing.
Dingnews.com 18/09/2025