Asian gaming will get its first look at the Philippines’ newest megaresort with the unveiling on Sunday of portions of Melco Crown Entertainment’s City of Dreams Manila.
Details of the so-called “soft” opening have yet to emerge, but the project has been eagerly awaited as the second of four destination casinos licensed for the government’s new Entertainment City tourist district on Manila Bay.
The opening is being staged for the “local market,” as Melco Crown co-Chairman Lawrence Ho has put it, and is “not a media event,” he said. A more formal opening is slated for February, he added, which would coincide with Chinese New Year, which kicks off on the 19th of that month.
City of Dreams Manila is a joint venture between a Philippine-listed subsidiary of Melco Crown—which operates two casinos in Macau and is opening a third in the Chinese gambling hub next year—and a local subsidiary of Philippine billionaire Henry Sy’s retail and property conglomerate SM.
The cost is pegged at US$1.3 billion at full build-out, which will include three hotels—a Crown Towers, a Hyatt and Nobu’s first hotel in Asia—totaling more than 900 five-star rooms, plus a DreamWorks indoor theme park, a nightclub, dining and shopping and other attractions.
Plans for the casino include 365 table games and more than 3,000 slot machines and electronic table games.
Entertainment City’s first licensee, Solaire Resort & Casino, opened in March 2013 at a cost of $750 million and recently expanded with more than 300 new suites and 66 additional VIP gaming tables. The property is owned by PSX-listed Bloomberry Resorts.
A Philippine subsidiary of Japanese machine gaming tycoon Kazuo Okada is slated to open the district’s third resort in phases beginning in 2016. Manila Bay Resorts, as it’s called, is priced at $2 billion.
Travellers International Hotel Group, owner of the country’s largest casino, Resorts World Manila, near the capital’s international airport, is developing the fourth resort, Bayshore City Resorts World, whose plans call for a 2018 opening at a total cost of $1.1 billion. Travellers is a partnership between Hong Kong-listed Genting Hong Kong and Philippine conglomerate Alliance Global Group.
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