Third fire since 2015
Arson may be the cause of a fire that broke out at SJM Holdings’ Grand Lisboa Palace, now under construction in the Cotai district of Macau.
According to the Macau Daily Times, it took 52 firefighters two hours to control the blaze, which started in a storage room on the 14th floor of a building where flammable construction materials were kept. More than 500 workers were forced to evacuate the scene, but no one was injured.
It’s the third time in two years that the development of Sociedade de Jogos de Macau in Cotai has caught fire, the Times reported. It is not known if it will delay the completion of the development, which is set to open in the first half of 2018.
In related news, SJM CEO Ambrose denied to local media that the company had seen an increase in the overall investment budget for Grand Lisboa Palace. In 2016 results released last month SJM Holdings noted that the Cotai project now had an estimated total cost of HKD36 billion (US$4.6 billion), more than the previous estimate of HKD30 billion.
“There is not an increase in the investment budget,” said So. “The HKD30 billion we referred to before mainly represented the cost of construction and furnishings. The HKD6 billion is the cost of other related supporting facilities and the pre-opening expenses. So when we add all these sums together, we have the amount as HKD36 billion.”
According to GGRAsia, So also said company did not anticipate any “major delays” to the scheduled completion of the project, said to be “around the end of 2017, for opening in the first half of 2018.”
Grand Lisboa Palace will include three hotel towers—the Grand Lisboa Palace, Palazzo Versace and Karl Lagerfeld—with a total of 2,000 rooms. So said the company will apply for “400 new live gaming tables” for the property, which has room for 500 tables and 1,000 slot machines.
“The number of gaming tables granted is ultimately a decision by the government,” he said. “But we will also assess market demand then at launch time. We can allocate gaming tables from the other properties of ours. Through this we can sort out our own resources, and enhance the efficiency of our gaming tables.”
