I agree that the Metropolitan Park seems like the big win. Its great advantage is the Citi Field anchor and ability to directly interface and connect Corona, Flushing and Flushing Park where there is currently something of a dead zone. The casino itself could fail—and quite possibly will—but the overall project would still upgrade the area. I would like to think it also might eventually result in Flushing Park getting a better maintenance budget and get more folks to the Queens Museum.
The Bally’s project seems to mainly just be more development where they already have a golf course in what is otherwise a non-place by the Whitestone. So, the Bally’s will live and die by whether they can entice people to drive there from the greater upstate/Connecticut/Long Island region, rather than go to the Mohegan or whatever. Very few Manhattan or Brooklyn residents will ever visit this place. If/when it fails, it’ll probably sit there for a long time, because there’s no other pressing demand for that land.
The Aqueduct project feels like a wildcard. The NAS tie-in might generate some initial interest from the city, but I am skeptical how long that interest will linger. It’s technically on public transportation, but that location is more associated with the suburban smear of Nassau County and the liminal extremes of Queens and Brooklyn. Disengaged. Either they have a critical market out there, or they don’t. Again, few Manhattan or Brooklyn residents are going to shlep out there. If it fails, well, the damage is confined to the existing Aqueduct site.
I’m relieved all the Manhattan casino projects collapsed. I don’t really care what they do in Times Square (as long as I don’t have to go there) but I all too well remember the hulk of the vacant Alexander’s sitting there for years on Madison Ave. We’re already awash in vacant commercial/retail space. Failed casinos are not trivial to repurpose. Also, not everything has to be in Manhattan.
