The Philippines’ US$1.3 billion Belle Grande Manila Bay will open by mid-summer of 2014, a company official says.
“Probably June or July, mid-2014,” said Willy Ocier, vice chairman of Belle Corp., a PSX-listed subsidiary of Philippines shopping mall giant SM Investments, which is developing the resort in partnership with a Philippines subsidiary of Macau’s Melco Crown Entertainment.
Located at Entertainment City, a government-sponsored resort district on 100 hectares of reclaimed bayfront land in the capital city of Manila, Belle Grande will contain 920 hotel rooms, according to current plans, plus a large-scale casino, restaurants and other leisure attractions. Its opening will be the second of four integrated resorts licensed for the prime site. The first, Solaire Resort & Casino, opened the $750 million first phase of its $1.2 billion IR last Saturday.
Belle and Melco Crown finalized an operating agreement last Friday that puts the casino operator in charge of the property with a share of the profits in exchange for an investment of approximately $650 million.
The remaining two IRs consist of a joint venture between the Phillipines’ Alliance Global and Malaysian conglomerate Genting, which also operates a Resorts World-branded casino in Manila, and a joint venture called Tiger Resorts Leisure and Entertainment that is being led by a subsidiary of Japanese machine gaming magnate Kazuo Okada’s Universal Entertainment.
Solaire is owned by Bloomberry Group, a PSX-listed entity controlled by Philippines ports tycoon Enrique Razon, and is operated by Global Gaming Asset Management, a US-based company founded by two former top executives of Las Vegas Sands, William Weidner and Brad Stone.
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