Supporters of the High Line Aim to Block Plan to Build a Casino Nearby

A plan to build a casino over a sprawling rail yard on Manhattan’s Far West Side has a new, formidable opponent: parkgoers.

Friends of the High Line, an influential nonprofit that operates the nearby 1.5-mile rail-line-turned-park, said Wednesday that it will muster supporters to attempt to thwart the development plan. The opponents of the casino proposal said the development would block views of the city from the High Line and create gusty winds and cast long shadows that could hurt local businesses.

The proposal, submitted in February, would also create a 1,180-foot apartment tower, a 1,376-foot office building, a public school and day care. The development, in Hudson Yards, is being led by Related Companies, which built the eastern half of the site, and Wynn Resorts, a Las Vegas gambling giant. The project could be completed by 2030.

But the biggest sticking point is a plan to build a podium as tall as 200 feet near the westernmost section of the High Line, on which the developers will build a casino and a skyscraper with 1,750 hotel rooms.

Supporters of the High Line fear that a planned podium that would hold a casino and skyscraper would detract from the park. Credit…Sara Konradi for The New York Times

Alan van Capelle, the park group’s executive director, likened the over 200,000-square-foot, 20-story podium to six Costco warehouses stacked on top of each other.