Melco Resorts Chairman and CEO Lawrence Ho says the company plans to start construction of Studio City Phase 2 before the end of the year.
The revised timeline comes after the company missed its previously stated goal of breaking ground by September, leaving Melco with a little over 18 months to meet its government-imposed completion deadline of 24 July 2021.
Providing an update during its 3Q19 earnings call, Ho said, “We hope to commence construction before year-end and have budgeted US$1.35 billion to US$1.4 billion for the Studio City expansion, which is expected to have two hotel towers, a Cineplex, one of the world’s largest indoor water parks and additional gaming space.”
Melco is also preparing to start a comprehensive renovation of Nüwa hotel at City of Dreams immediately after Chinese New Year 2020, with development work expected to take around 15 months, while it is currently working on the design of three new luxury villas at Morpheus which it hopes to launch in time for CNY 2021.
“We had some space that we have shelved out when we built Morpheus, so we have space for three villas,” explained Chief Operating Officer, Macau Resorts, David Sisk.
“We’ve also got another space, we’re looking to add two large suites. We’re designing that right now and it should be pretty spectacular when it comes to the market.
“It’s a very contemporized design. The designer is the same designer who did Ducasse for us and Voyage, so he is a very dynamic guy out of France.”
Aside from renovating Nüwa and adding villas at Morpheus, Melco’s makeover of City of Dreams will include a revamp of The Countdown Hotel, set to be called Libertine when it opens in 2021.
