Resorts World New York City to Help Build 50,000 Affordable Housing Units
Posted on: May 20, 2025, 08:33h.
Last updated on: May 20, 2025, 09:07h.
- Resorts World New York City is committed to building more affordable housing in NYC
- Resorts World has joined a fund seeking to build up to 50K housing units
- Resorts World is seeking a full-scale New York City casino license
Resorts World New York City has pledged to help construct up to 50K units of affordable housing across the five boroughs.
Resorts World is joining Cirrus Real Estate Partners and its Cirrus Workforce Housing Fund’s March 2024 memorandum of understanding with the City of New York and the Building and Construction Trades Council to develop workforce housing on public lands using union labor.
Cirrus, a New York-based real estate investment management firm that specializes in long-term borrower, partner, and investor-led residential complexes, initially funded the Cirrus Workforce Housing Fund with more than $100 million. Cirrus continues to seek investors for another $400 million, with Resorts World signing on the be a major contributor.
Resorts World New York City is committed to quickly addressing the housing crisis many of our employees, neighbors, and everyday working New Yorkers face today,” said Kevin Jones, chief legal and chief strategy officer at Genting Americas, the parent entity of Resorts World NYC. “Our partnership with Cirrus, labor pension funds, and contractors will ensure there is union-financed, union-built, and union-lived in fair housing across the five boroughs. New Yorkers who power this city deserve nothing less, and we are excited to start investing in a solution that delivers for them.”
Genting Americas is the North American operating unit of Genting, the Malaysian gaming and hospitality conglomerate that is seeking one of the three full-scale casino licenses up for grabs in downstate New York.
Housing Initiative Separate from Casino Bid
Resorts World New York City is the largest single employer of hotel and gaming workers in the five boroughs but many of its workers, company officials say, must commute from far distances because of inadequate housing within the city.
The Cirrus initiative with the city, now joined by Resorts World, is to address the Big Apple’s “growing shortage of working-class housing.” A casino spokesperson told Casino.org that Resorts World’s participation in the workforce housing enterprise isn’t contingent on the property receiving one of the three downstate New York gaming concessions that would allow its gaming floor to place slot machines and live dealer table games.
Resorts World, like its primary competitor — Empire City Casino by MGM Resorts in Yonkers — currently only offers slot-like video lottery terminals and electronic table games. A casino license from the New York Gaming Facility Location Board would also allow Resorts World to open a sportsbook.
NYC Frontrunner
Though Resorts World will help fund the Cirrus build regardless of whether it’s awarded a casino license later this year, analysts largely agree that the Genting property is a frontrunner for one of the $500 million concessions. That’s because RW has been a longtime partner of NYC and Queens.
If RW does receive a full gaming license, Genting Americas says it would invest $5 billion to significantly expand the destination with 1,600 additional hotel rooms, a 350K-square-foot casino floor, a 7,000-seat entertainment venue, and 350K square feet of meeting and convention space.
Resorts World has also committed to 50 acres of public greenspace and 3,000 union-built and labor-financed homes. The New York Gaming Facility Location Board is expected to render its winners by the end of the year.
Last Comments ( 1 )
A joke & a waste of money nobody wants to go in that area. It’s disgusting over there. You gotta watch you don’t get robbed and I’m a gambler and I don’t even wanna go over there. Waste of money good to keep the unions working and all that, but just don’t build for the shake of building on it and who’s gonna stay in those hotels people that go to the casino that play with vouchers instead of real chips really I’ve never heard of that in my life. It’s not a casino. it’s a joke. There’s no craps tables. There’s no blackjack tables with actual dealers and chips. There’s no actual roulette. It is a joke. That’s the kind of casino. New York wants to be proud of. It is a joke.