Mets Casino Project Moves Forward As Cohen Shakes Up Front Office

The Mets continue to be in significant transition under owner Steve Cohen, making critical progress on their large-scale bid to transform the Citi Field area and parting ways with a key executive.

The MLB club said late Tuesday that the president of business operations, Scott Havens, will be stepping down after 18 months with the team. The former Bloomberg Media CEO and longtime media executive packed a significant amount of activity in the brief stint, helping oversee several upgrades to Citi Field and a league-leading attendance boost this year that came in part from signing Juan Soto last fall to a record-setting, $765 million deal. 

Even as Soto has struggled with the Mets so far, that attendance bump in Queens has grown to 53% compared to this time last year. 

The pursuit of Soto, however, also included comments last summer at a Front Office Sports event that “we think he’s a tremendous baseball player. We’d love to have him in Queens,” which in turn raised eyebrows within the sport as potential tampering. Cohen said in a statement that he had “differing perspectives on long-term strategy” with Havens. FOS sources said Cohen is interested in someone with more sports industry experience, and the club intends to announce a new president of business operations “shortly.”

“Scott has played a key role in driving progress across the Mets organization,” Cohen said in a statement. “I’m grateful for the impact he’s had during his time with us.”

Top leaders in the Mets’ marketing, legal, communications, and finance departments have also left in recent months. 

Key Casino Step

Cohen, meanwhile, has cleared another significant hurdle in his ongoing bid to develop an $8 billion casino and entertainment complex adjacent to Citi Field, and in partnership with Hard Rock International. 

The New York state senate voted Tuesday to allow New York City to reclassify 50 acres of parking lots around Citi Field and expand the permitted uses of the land to include the Metropolitan Park casino project. The state assembly has already approved the measure, and it now heads to Gov. Kathy Hochul for her signature. 

“After years of community engagement, thousands of conversations, and the leadership of our local officials, we are one step closer to transforming the asphalt lots into something our neighbors can truly be proud of,” Cohen said. 

All of this is prelude in an effort to win one of three coveted downstate gaming licenses—which are set to be awarded in December. Metropolitan Park is one of 11 major entities pursuing those three licenses, with rival projects proposed for other iconic New York locales such as Times Square, Coney Island, Hudson Yards, and Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. 

There is no downscaled version of Metropolitan Park envisioned if the casino licenses go elsewhere, Metropolitan Park officials said, as the gaming revenue that would be generated is a key source of the project’s private funding.