Jay-Z Has Joined A Group Of Investors Who Want To Open A Casino In Times Square

Jay-Z’s “God Did” verse sparked discussions about capitalism and the war on drugs. “Nobody touched the billi until Hov did,” the billionaire mogul and rapper boasts on the DJ Khaled track from August. And who’s going to break ground on a casino in New York City? Hov could.

via: New York Post

SL Green and Caesars Entertainment have a glam new partner in their hoped-for Times Square casino — Brooklyn-born billionaire rapper and entertainment impresario Jay-Z and his Roc Nation, Realty Check has learned.

The three-way partnership, to be announced at SL Green’s annual investor conference on Monday, marks a dramatic twist in the developer’s and Caesars’ quest to launch a casino at SL Green’s 1515 Broadway office tower. (They’re among a half-dozen teams that are also expected to submit proposals to the state for a first full-scale casino in the Big Apple.)

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.”

SLG chief executive officer Marc Holliday also shared more specifics about his company’s casino proposal than have ever been disclosed.

Contrary to claims that Caesars Palace Times Square, as it’s to be called, would be a mammoth gaming mecca that might overwhelm everything around it, the casino would occupy only eight floors in the 54-story tower between West 43d and 44th streets.

None would be the ground floor, which is earmarked for non-gaming uses including an entrance to the Minskoff Theater, home of “The Lion King.”

“We are putting theater at ground level,” Holliday emphasized.

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.

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