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Your Commercial Real Estate Insider guide. From profiles of the biggest dealmakers to skyline-shaping transactions, we bring you the deals, breakdowns and war stories that move the market — for insiders, by insiders. From bad-boy guarantees to CMBS tranche warfare to syndicator sins, we cover it all.
Each week, The Promote Podcast explores three of the most interesting and consequential stories in CRE, taking you well beyond the headlines and into the heart of the action. Hosted by the award-winning “Bard of CRE,” Hiten Samtani, founder of ten31 media and author of The Promote newsletter, along with no-BS institutional insider Will Krasne. Also check out our 3x/week newsletter for industry insiders at https://www.thepromote.com/
Hiten Samtani (00:00)
Zohran Mamdani, that's M-A-M-D-A-N-I. But it might as well be OMFG, because that's how the real estate industry sees the self-styled socialist. We've already learned of one big deal being aborted, and players are promising many more.
This is the Promote Podcast, your insider guide to the money and mania of the CRA markets. I'm Hattem. I will. Could you loan me $500 so I can buy into SL Green's casino bid? Because I think they're going to
Will Krasne (00:21)
well.
Sure, but then $370 would go to more holidays compensation.
Hiten Samtani (00:35)
This week, we break down the fear and loathing, there's a lot of both, stemming from Mamdani improbable win in the New York City mayoral primary. We then dive into a particularly juicy offshore hotel transaction. is selling player properties in a two billion asset-light mega deal. And finally, we head back to New York. A coveted casino license is up for grabs, and developers are doing whatever they can to score it. Will, you ready to play some fucking cards?
Will Krasne (01:00)
Okay, worm. Let's play some fucking cards.
Hiten Samtani (01:07)
All right, we gotta start obviously in New York City. The Zohran Mamdani thing, a nobody by the way, a couple of years ago, beat Andrew Cuomo, maybe beats too soft a word, he trounced him. It was ⁓ a smash.
Will Krasne (01:20)
Yes, yes it was and ⁓ you could have seen it all the way from Andrew Cuomo taking his black car five blocks to Parky Leigh to vote for himself.
Hiten Samtani (01:29)
And not going to spend too much time on the political side of things except where it comes to real estate. I think this is probably the most surprising political master class in the country since Obama won. In the last few days, the primary was I think June 24th. In the last few days, there's this hybrid retreat and resist strategy that's shaping up. So some of the CRE's biggest players are lining up behind Eric Adams.
Will Krasne (01:51)
mean, look, rats don't have swag. Eric Adams has swag, so I don't blame Scott Reckler for getting behind him.
Hiten Samtani (01:57)
Definitely
has a ton of swag. So Scott Reckler, a bunch of other very big players in New York real estate are now funding Eric Adams after lining the pockets of Andrew Cuomo during his run. But we knew there was gonna be a lot of rhetoric, right? This checks so many of the fear boxes for real estate people. yeah. Beyond the racial and identity parts, let's leave those aside. This guy's a socialist, he doesn't believe in billionaires. A lot of the people in the industry, I mean, this is as scary as it can get.
I knew that was gonna come. That was not a surprise. What was a surprise though is we're actually seeing business being impacted. So Benefit Street's my comparado who we've had on this podcast, he pulled out of a deal, a $300 million deal for a really interesting hotel transaction. They were gonna buy, they were partnering with a company called Wiremog and they were gonna buy this seven hotel portfolio that Big Dick Max Reit controlled, had taken back from Sindat. It's just.
Will Krasne (02:37)
Hey, mate.
Hiten Samtani (02:55)
It's a whole thing and they pulled out and it's just crazy.
Will Krasne (02:57)
I sort of get it because uncertainty is always the thing you want to fight against as an investor. But the problem is uncertainty is also what creates the most opportunities. The fact that, you know, these were non-union hotels, I believe. And so there wasn't really anything that directly that the mayor can do that.
Hiten Samtani (03:14)
is
correct but I think what happened here is they're saying that if you have a self-styled socialist in charge and power in New York City the temple of capitalism they bring up words like this all bets are off like what if there's some kind of mandatory unionization or if there's a new tax they just don't know enough there's too many unknown unknowns as Rundfeld would say
Will Krasne (03:35)
I just think it's crazy though, because on the other side, like what happens if every house cleaner and hotel cleaner in New York gets rounded up by ICE? I mean, that really hurts you too. So investing is really hard. There's risks everywhere. If anyone drops a deal, like in this environment especially, like you should not be shamed. Like no one should be like, what are you doing? He's a steward of capital. If he doesn't think it's the right thing to do, like it's incredibly valid. That's literally his job is to make those decisions. But I do think that
There's been overreacting and these things swing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And one of the things about New York, at least that I sort of feel like is the vibe of New York is really what matters. It's the same in San Francisco as we've seen, we've talked about with Mayor Lurie sort of bringing that back from that perspective.
Hiten Samtani (04:24)
Slim and Trim, Greg Flynn coming in there and buying some stuff.
Will Krasne (04:27)
Absolutely. Did we not call him Slim and Trim, Greg Fulcher? Really good. That's why they pay you the big bucks. Thank you. yeah, a rent freeze is terrible policy. Even if you ask Mom Donnie, he knows it's terrible policy. But you know what the whole goal of this thing is? To get elected so that you can effectuate change. And he has an agenda. He doesn't seem wedded to process. He seems really driven by outcomes.
Hiten Samtani (04:31)
⁓ just came up with it.
I mean he is a politician in all senses that word, right? Like he wants to win, he knows how to rally a movement, he knows how to create a lot of excitement and momentum around his campaign. And so, I mean, it's the populist thing to say, right? Free but.
Will Krasne (05:07)
Kind of reminds me of another guy from Queens Yeah, yeah and look like you can see what happened in San Francisco and like Chesa Boone got elected and he was like I'm gonna do these things and I kind of don't really care what the outcomes are because that's my whole shtick I guarantee you if the rent freeze causes deleterious outcomes. He's probably gonna back it up because
Hiten Samtani (05:09)
Another guy who's doing pretty well is
Will just wanted you to know that he did well in the SAT because he drops this deleterious cell. ⁓
Will Krasne (05:33)
Extremely
well, I got 1580 spoiler. ⁓ you mean nerd alert alert nerd and again, I've never met him I've never talked to him but just he's the standard bearer for his entire wing of the party and the stuff that is gonna end the momentum that he's got right now is if Crime goes crazy in the city gets dirty. I
Hiten Samtani (05:50)
think
if he realizes that if he keeps the streets safe and clean, he can do a lot of what he actually wants to accomplish and he can keep these real estate forces at bay and keep business interests somewhat happy. I mean, I think that the standard in New York City for so long has been Mayor Bloomberg and we ain't getting a Mayor Bloomberg again. Like we're not for a long time. No. So they need someone new. Eric Adams, mean, he was malleable, I think is the most charitable way you can talk about it.
Will Krasne (06:18)
at him. mean, and for sale is, you know, the least charitable way you can talk about him. But what I just also want to like hit on is that there's more than just one thing that impacts real estate pricing. And if he makes the city cool again, if it remains safe and stays clean, like to your point, people can get along with a lot as long as you do that right. And like one of the things that always happens is, you know, certain super leftist
members of the house, like, how do those people not get primaried? You know, even in super safe districts, the reason is because they can have legendarily good constituent services. And if you fix potholes, if you get trash picked up, people day to day, like they don't really care. You know, they care about what you they can see with their eyes for the most part.
Hiten Samtani (07:04)
what
they can see on the street, impacts their block, their corner.
Will Krasne (07:07)
Yeah,
if the halal truck goes back to eight bucks, you know, okay.
Hiten Samtani (07:11)
He did the Halal viral videos. Well, he's just done a very good job kind of energizing people. But at some point, I think between now and let's say November, I think that my prediction is that he will make some sort of common sense outreach to the business community, which includes real estate titans.
Will Krasne (07:28)
100 % and frankly, I think it is an enormous opportunity if you are a New York real estate guy of certain stature like I don't know how you're not trying to get in front of him in a dinner or something
Hiten Samtani (07:40)
I've
heard of some kind of dinners trying to be organized with him.
Will Krasne (07:42)
Yeah,
he's very likely to win. what is it? What good does it do to fight it? Like figure out how to work with him.
Hiten Samtani (07:50)
You know, it's interesting, Mayor de Blasio had shut out the real estate industry in his campaign and he was one of the mayors where I feel like real estate titans didn't mind taking shots at him in the press. However, net-net, he was fairly good for real estate. Like I think he was considered a very pro-development mayor, pro-real estate in many ways. I don't know, in general, real estate people have the ability to separate rhetoric from action. But in this case, at least in this past week, you don't see any of that.
Will Krasne (08:19)
I know, and it's crazy too because the guy he's running he ran against and defeated signed the rent law!
Hiten Samtani (08:24)
Yeah, he did. He did. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago. I mean, the 2019 rent laws went to freaking Governor Cuomo's desk and he signed them. And that's part of the reason people are talking about the meltdown in the rent stabilized asset class is because of Handy Andy.
Will Krasne (08:38)
He's just Italian.
Hiten Samtani (08:40)
But should we talk for a second about the deal that went, I think it's such an interesting deal, the one that did not happen, the benefit street deal.
Will Krasne (08:48)
I mean to paraphrase Ron Russo, I'm more interested in the deal that didn't happen.
Hiten Samtani (08:51)
So
this one, seven hotels, 1,100 keys in total. Benefit was gonna be the equity partner for a company called Waramog. What is Waramog? Anyway, they were gonna get 1,100 keys, Prime Manhattan, Chelsea, Phi Dai, Herald Square, et cetera. And I think it was penciling out to about 275 a key.
Will Krasne (09:13)
What was the old recap basis for Sindat there?
Hiten Samtani (09:17)
It was more like $525 a key is what Sindad paid in 2018. Hersha, which is now KSL, Hersha had bought it and then brought Sindad in at that steep valuation. think Sindad paid $570 million. They bought in at $570 million. ⁓ When do the Chinese not hold a bag is the question.
Will Krasne (09:37)
It's remarkable because there's a lot of hotels that they have held the bag on.
Hiten Samtani (09:42)
Waldorf Astoria. The Baccarat? The Baccarat? A million a key? was a two million, I think it was two million a key.
Will Krasne (09:48)
Actually, think the hotel's name is actually sold for a North American record price per key, two million. The rocker.
Hiten Samtani (09:54)
I guess it's like Mac real estate strategies, the credit strategies. They made an $85 million Mez loan to Sindat and Hersha, and then they took over the property via UCC foreclosure right at the beginning of COVID.
Will Krasne (10:06)
Yeah, and these aren't, it's not the world of Restoria, it's like the candlewood suites, ⁓ mixture of other sort of mid-market hotels, but. Yeah, no, great areas. think Sam Chang may have built.
Hiten Samtani (10:13)
But like prime area is great area.
Sounds like a mix-am kind of deal, And don't you think these are the kind of hotels that would benefit from the Airbnb crackdown quite a bit?
Will Krasne (10:21)
Yeah, probably.
Yeah, no, I definitely think they would. And I mean, I just stayed in one of them in New York the other week. It was full. Free breakfast before nine was packed.
Hiten Samtani (10:37)
So there's a lot of fear and a lot of loathing ⁓ from the primary. People are talking about just pausing and waiting to see what happens, right? Across the board, lenders, investors, et cetera, but someone has the opportunity to step in now and take advantage of that and get some good prices for these things, because things have to trade.
Will Krasne (10:56)
Things have to trade and look New York's New York. New Yorkers try to destroy itself for over and over again and it always comes back. If young people want to be there that drives everything else.
Hiten Samtani (11:07)
We're certainly not mum down he stands here. Neither of us is a socialist, but I think this is the reality. This is what's happening in the city right now. And real estate investors have to figure out how to play ball with them. I mean, there's going to be workarounds. They're going to go to the state level where they've always had a lot of juice and they're going to try to make sure that their juice is intact there. Because as you know, will the state has a pretty big influence on how rent laws are set in New York city.
Will Krasne (11:31)
Well, yeah, because again, the guy that he just beat signed the rent law that everyone hates. there's two things that I sort of want to like button up here. The first is that everyone who says, you know, I'm only investing in, you know, not investing in New York or California, like I'm only investing in red states.
Hiten Samtani (11:47)
John Katsomatides running the South Florida, right, with his chicken.
Will Krasne (11:50)
Right, because no one has ever made money investing in real estate in New York or California and no state has ever had any challenges. It's crazy. Like the whole point of regulation is that it makes it really hard to do. And so if you can do it, you can make a lot of money because by definition, there's not a lot of competition. There's a reason why, you know, Two Trees is able to build in Williamsburg when like someone who has 25 IRR money can't. Yeah, that's the whole thing. Like the fact that a broad ski is
Probably making as much in rent as it cost to build one of their Columbus Circle buildings 35 years ago. That's the whole thing. All of this is risk. All of it is pricing the risk. There's a price you would pay for everything. And to me, I think the risk has been overblown. And then the second thing I want to say is to make it in real estate, you have to be a deluded optimist because all this stuff is so crazy. It's the worst business.
Hiten Samtani (12:43)
I think Henry Elganian of Rockrose called it a sickness. He's like, you need to have not just an optimism, but it's like almost a sick level of optimism to make sure it works.
Will Krasne (12:51)
Totally. So what does it do to say, whoa, whoa, is you are you if you're a New York developer, what are you going to do? You're to go move somewhere else? Why not be optimistic? Because there are things to be optimistic about.
Hiten Samtani (13:03)
Did you catch the exchange that Peter Hungerford, our guy who has been buying up all the rent stabilized units.
He had a little spicy quote, I think it was in Bloomberg. said the following, I think this will accelerate the pace at which a lot of landlords give up, i.e. This is going to make my pipeline look pretty good. Real estate investment is essentially a battle of narratives, right? Which narrative, which story do you believe in? And I think the Mamdani story for a lot of real estate people is a scary story.
Will Krasne (13:20)
So to me.
Hiten Samtani (13:40)
If you're interested in getting in front of our audience, hit us up at partnerships at thepromote.com. That's partnerships at thepromote.com.
So, well, a couple of weeks ago, we talked with our boy Mark Ganze about his asset light approach to data center investing. And now we've got another example from the hotel world, which is your old world. And you wanted to talk about it. So Hyatt and Tortuga. Tortuga? Tortuga? Tortuga.
Will Krasne (14:06)
the mystical aisle.
Hiten Samtani (14:14)
Really
do, there's a wistfulness when you talk about hotels.
Will Krasne (14:16)
One day I hope to be wealthy enough to go back to investing in hotels.
Hiten Samtani (14:20)
You know
what I hear about investing in hotels? It's hard.
Will Krasne (14:22)
What's that?
It's so hard. It's so.
Hiten Samtani (14:26)
hard.
Did you see Goldman just pulled out of a deal to develop something? Yeah. Anyway, go on.
Will Krasne (14:29)
I did in Greece.
Okay, so Hyatt Hotels bought Playa Properties and Hyatt has been indexing towards all-inclusive Mark Hoplamazian. I think I said that right? Yeah!
Hiten Samtani (14:42)
Wow, you nailed it. ⁓
You should move to LA.
Will Krasne (14:46)
So they've been over indexing towards all inclusive resorts now for those of the hotels Aren't necessarily owned by the hotel companies So you have the C corps in the reeds, right? And so the reeds are the ones like host which actually own the hotels Yeah, the C corps are the brands and so they own the IP
Hiten Samtani (15:07)
Me,
your Hyades, your Marriottes, your... Et cetera.
Will Krasne (15:10)
Hilton, yeah.
And they own the IP, they own all the brands, so you pay a fee to use the brand, use a fee for advertising.
Hiten Samtani (15:21)
And also importantly, I should say they own the consumer mind share, right? Like no one thinks of the owner. You just think of a hire.
Will Krasne (15:28)
Or at Hilton. Exactly. so it's one of the things that always got my goat on Twitter is when people would do that tweet where it's like, know, Uber owns no taxis and Airbnb owns no hotels. like, you know who else owns no hotels? Fucking Hyatt. Because owning hotels is a very hard business. And so they have gotten out of that. So they bought Playa, which is great because they're like, OK, we have all these very high dollar, all inclusive hotels and resorts.
Hiten Samtani (15:53)
When they bought them, they bought the brick too or what?
Will Krasne (15:55)
Yeah, they bought the entire public company. So Playa was a public company.
Hiten Samtani (15:59)
Okay,
so we knew when they did that that that's not going to be the long-term plan or
Will Krasne (16:03)
Well, generally they want to get away from owning the assets, so it's not a surprise that they sold them, it's a surprise that they sold them this quickly.
Hiten Samtani (16:09)
The press release about the closing of the Playa deal that they did just came out like a couple weeks ago. So this is a John Gray style where you're, you know, buying EOP and then slicing it up as quickly as possible.
Will Krasne (16:20)
Exactly. so they are selling it. They're selling the assets themselves. I think 15 of them to a joint venture between KSL who are just about as good a hotel guys as are are around. They own Altera Ski Company.
Hiten Samtani (16:35)
And we just talked about them because the transaction that Benefit Street pulled out of was a Hershey deal, which is now owned by KSL. Just a little extra context.
Will Krasne (16:43)
Exactly. And then ⁓ a Mexican family office. Tortuga.
Hiten Samtani (16:48)
Tortuga.
Well, it's a, Tortuga is a JV between KSL and I guess the, it's the family office for the Chico family, which is a very big family, very prominent family in Mexico.
Will Krasne (17:02)
Right, so a couple things that are really interesting about this transaction other than just the speed with which it happened. So one of the big things that the Hotel C Corp's try to get is management of the hotels. Yes. So in addition to paying 5 % franchise fee, 1 % marketing fee, they will manage the hotels. So like when you walk into a, you know, the secrets, las romanas, the front desk employee like works for Hyatt. Yeah.
Those management contracts can be incredibly lucrative because the payroll gets paid for by the hotel. So the management fees are really asset light and very good business, particularly on these high dollar hotels because they generate so much revenue.
Hiten Samtani (17:44)
this is just zooming out for a second. This is the kind of revenue that everyone is chasing, right? This kind of asset lied, fee stream, think Comparato talked about it with the mortgage servicing rights as well,
Will Krasne (17:55)
But I'd like if you're a public company, you know what a public company shareholder wants is like predictable earnings and they don't get much more predictable than a 50 year management contract.
Hiten Samtani (18:04)
It's incredible. So what's the normal comp is what? 20, 30?
Will Krasne (18:07)
20 or so depends on the type of hotel. So there's definitely some shenanigans in this cap stack because, know, Hyatt has a $200 million dollar prep piece that they're holding onto.
Hiten Samtani (18:19)
I take it from the way you're talking about it, it's not easy to get to 50 year contract, right? Like that's not a normal thing. Like Barry Sternlich would look at this and say, well played.
Will Krasne (18:28)
I mean, well, Hyatt definitely had to give something to get the 50-year term. brand management is generally not considered the best. You generally want to bring in your own management, especially for full service assets like this, or like these are, they're very intensive. You need people who like just do this because Hyatt does a lot of things. You want someone who just does this. generally speaking, if you're looking at a hotel, like the first question that you would ask is like, is it encumbered by brand and is it encumbered by management?
and the management and Com brands here is 50 years. So it is encumbered to kingdom come and you're stuck with the management.
Hiten Samtani (19:04)
Let's break that down for our audience. So if you want to get out of the management contract, basically have to pay up to get out of
Will Krasne (19:10)
You
gotta pay liquidated damages for 50 years.
Hiten Samtani (19:12)
Basically like when in soccer when you fire your football manager, when you fire the gaffer, you have to pay them out.
Will Krasne (19:17)
Yeah, but if their wages were like equivalent to like four years of revenue for the club, think about it this way. If you bought something, the best way to fix it is to bring in new management and basically you can't. So KSL obviously very smart, sharp, savvy guys in the hotel space. These are international, which makes it maybe like a little bit easier to get around the management encumbrance, like to come to grips with it. If you're the next buyer, because you can basically say like, okay, this is a full service hotel in Florida. So.
having the Hyatt management isn't necessarily as much of a negative, but it's definitely something to keep an eye on. And that's why it sort of was interesting to me is that they're basically paying whatever ETH on multiple on this fee stream and KSL is getting these assets.
Hiten Samtani (20:02)
Yeah, well, just let's put some numbers to this. So they say in the release that Hyatt's net purchase price for this business is essentially 555 million.
Will Krasne (20:10)
Yeah, and I think they said they were going to make something between 55 and 60 million of Ipita.
Hiten Samtani (20:14)
When a family office comes in, so you said they were doing this like in an interesting sidecar deal. Let's talk a little bit about that. Like what's the juice here for Rodina?
Will Krasne (20:22)
You have a best in class operating partner who has tons of access to capital. Like they, they could have raised this, you know, they could have done it out of one of their funds. Like that would have been big for them, but like they could have done it like Altera is bigger than this. ⁓ but you have a very large family office that frankly I had never heard of and they're buying very trophy assets with a very trophy operator from a very trophy seller. And it's obviously a bet on global travel because these are very expensive.
resorts to go to and they're very reliant on the global consumer feeling affluent and not being in a recession.
Hiten Samtani (21:00)
Anything that's changed more broadly and kind of in the macro environment to get us to this kind of transaction or are we seeing more deals structured this way where you're buying it and then quickly getting out of it?
Will Krasne (21:11)
I think that everybody kind of wins here where Hyatt gets these mandatory contracts, they get to index more into all inclusive, which they'd been looking to do. And then KSL gets these at maybe not necessarily optically a discount, but with some capital stack shenanigans, they get in at a basis they feel really good about, and they've got a long-term capital partner behind them.
Hiten Samtani (21:35)
You keep talking about capital stack shenanigans. Like what part of this contract would you most, if you had one page to look at?
Will Krasne (21:41)
⁓ I would definitely want to understand the earn out.
Hiten Samtani (21:51)
town will never be the same.
Will Krasne (21:54)
Jesus
Hiten Samtani (21:58)
like Disneyland.
So why are we talking casinos? They're trying to build a casino in New York City, which hasn't happened for a long time. And all the developers you can think of are falling over this opportunity. Well, a couple of people bounced, Related was trying to do something in Hudson Yards, They're Out, ⁓ Saks was trying to do something for a minute right above their store on Fifth Avenue.
Will Krasne (22:21)
yeah, but they got bigger fish to fry right now.
Hiten Samtani (22:24)
Yeah,
that 600 million, it's like a very strange rescue capital deal that's going on with them.
Will Krasne (22:30)
It's the most convoluted, bankrupt, covered land deal that's ever been done. Though, I will say, $100,000 a hand, like, you know, poker room at the top of Saks would have been kind of cool.
Hiten Samtani (22:44)
I think so too. I think it's a nice location, but we have a few players left in the race that I want to get into and each of them is offering their own kind of sweetener. So instead of getting into the wonky, the broader vision of all these casinos, cause you can go read about them anywhere else. I thought it'd be fun to just get into the particular sweeteners that each of these development groups is offering.
Will Krasne (23:04)
And there's been some news on the first one I'm really excited to get into.
Hiten Samtani (23:07)
100%. So let's start there. Let's start at 1515 Broadway, which is the JV between the mighty reed SL Green and Caesars, right? 1515 Broadway. What have they got?
Will Krasne (23:16)
They have the hardest working man in America. Like, he'll do anything to make it happen.
Hiten Samtani (23:20)
So it's 150 pushups, 150 sit ups, a five mile run, and then he's going to sell you a piece of this casino for 500 bucks. can't even see what's...
Will Krasne (23:28)
For those of you who don't know why we're laughing like it is oh You have to go read the clothes
Hiten Samtani (23:31)
sound like maniacs, but he's gonna fill you in.
It
was a day in the life with Ryan Williams.
Will Krasne (23:38)
Yeah, the damn life of Ryan Williams from Cadre. It's from the peak of his Cadreness.
Hiten Samtani (23:40)
i'll put in the show notes
When you go to sleep, you might think about building a good life for your son and your family and maybe a good business. When I go to sleep, I think, how can I ensure we build the world's most impactful marketplace for alternative? There has never been a man who's taken himself more seriously. Ryan Williams is now running the crowdfunding portion of this sweetener, which is part of what SL Green and Caesars are touting. And then the Reverend Al Sharpton is involved too. He's giving his endorsement. I don't know what's going on.
I think 15-15 Broadway. think this is gonna win. First of all, casino in Times Square is probably to me the logical place to put it, but.
Will Krasne (24:21)
Yeah, time square makes the most sense. Absolutely.
Hiten Samtani (24:23)
Who else is going in? So Silverstein and two gaming companies, I forget their names, they want to put this on the far west side. And they've got a Hyatt Hotel component to it. And their sweetener is really interesting because they're bringing in the other part of their business. They're talking about funding 2000 Office to Rezzi conversions as part of this plan.
Will Krasne (24:41)
I mean, Ports is in Vegas.
Hiten Samtani (24:44)
You know who their partner is on that? You want to take a guess?
on the conversion part.
Will Krasne (24:50)
⁓ of course, our good friend Nathan Berman.
Hiten Samtani (24:52)
The Alchemist, yeah, absolutely. And we've got Joe Sitt, but that name hasn't come up in a long time. Joe Sitt's partnering with the Chickasaw Nation for his Coney Island mega project. It's just a little too far to get to, I mean, I think from a quality of life perspective for New York, it's the right move.
Will Krasne (25:03)
I Coney Island would also be a good place for-
So real question is if this casino goes to Coney Island, does John Catsimatidis come back because he has those two towers on Coney Island?
Hiten Samtani (25:19)
And Ruby Schron got a big project there as well. So the way that these guys are incentivizing or the sweetener that Sit and his partners are offering is a $200 million community trust fund, which I would imagine is kind of like what the big developers do with community improvements around their transit improvements and such. And then finally, we've got part-time farmer, full-time mogul, Stefan Soloviev. He wants to put this on the East River.
Will Krasne (25:45)
So this was actually the site of New York City's Olympic bid in billions. So I actually also think this is not a bad place for it because it's been fallow for so long and it's such a drive by it and it's just like a missing hole.
Hiten Samtani (25:49)
That is right.
I think Soloviev would appreciate your agricultural pun there, by the way.
Will Krasne (26:02)
Thank you. I'll my best.
Hiten Samtani (26:04)
And so here, so similar to what Sit's offering, they've got a community reinvestment fund, but it's not a set dollar amount. They're saying that it would get 2 % of the annual gaming profits.
Will Krasne (26:14)
You the casino basically was licensed to print money, but that license is really expensive and you gotta figure out how to pay.
Hiten Samtani (26:20)
for
it. Why is this happening now? I think this is post COVID. think these developers saw an opening.
Will Krasne (26:24)
the state decided they were finally going to do it.
Hiten Samtani (26:27)
But was the catalyst or the impetus for this what to do with all the stock after COVID?
Will Krasne (26:33)
I
mean, honestly, it was probably like DraftKings and online gaming and seeing like Jersey and all these other states get the revenue.
Hiten Samtani (26:42)
I that's true. mean, it's tough though. I don't know. Principally, I'm a little bit opposed to it. Not a big fan.
Will Krasne (26:48)
I'm horrifically, I'm horrifically opposed to online gambling. I am very pro in-person gambling. Let's play some fucking cards.
Hiten Samtani (27:00)
That's it for the Promote Podcast this week. After busting on Cuomo, the real estate industry is hoping to shoot the moon with atoms. Hyatt wants it on the action, but doesn't want to furnish the spot. And New York's developers are offering political high rollers the whole canish. Okay, we gotta stop, because I'm out of gambling puns.
Will Krasne (27:17)
Yeah, please like, share, subscribe, cards, emails, Reddit.
Hiten Samtani (27:25)
Well that was a blast, thank you. We'll see you guys next week.
Will Krasne (27:27)
Thank you.
Hiten Samtani (27:32)
Ciao!