After addressing an employee meeting, Allen said the company, owned by Florida’s Seminole Tribe, has three possible locations lined up for its planned $2bn gaming property, but would not identify them.
However, he did divulge that the company’s soon-to-open, 446-room Hard Rock Hotel New York would not be one of them, and attributed this to its size.
“You have to have a footprint of real estate large enough to take advantage of the size of the market,” he remarked.
“We’re extremely proud of our hotel on 48th Street, but its footprint is just not large enough for gaming.
“As far as other locations, really we’re waiting on the governor and the committee that’s going to be sending out the request for proposals to see what language is in the bill as to geographic locations that would be acceptable to the state.”
New Jersey’s Meadowlands Racetrack, in which Hard Rock holds a partial ownership stake, is another contender for the company’s planned casino site. Allen did not rule this out as an option, but New Jersey’s constitution does not permit casino gambling outside of Atlantic City.
He said: “I’m not saying we would drop a Meadowlands option. I think we have to look at all the different circumstances.
“There’s certainly the ability to have more than one product in a geographic area, as we’ve done many times in our industry.”
