The second of the Philippines’ new megaresorts, City of Dreams Manila, is planning a soft opening for next month to be followed by a grand opening in the first quarter of 2015.
“Pretty much everything will be open” by December, said Lawrence Ho, co-chairman of Macau casinos giant Melco Crown Entertainment, which is developing the US$1 billion-plus project in partnership with a Philippine company controlled by the country’s richest man, Henry Sy.
City of Dreams Manila will be the second gaming resort to open at Entertainment City, a government-backed resort zone on Manila Bay slated to host four similarly sized casino hotels. The first, the $750 million Solaire Resort & Casino, opened last March and currently is expanding with a second hotel tower and more gaming space.
Melco Crown made the opening announcement during its earnings report for the third quarter, which saw its Macau net revenue fall 10 percent to US$1.1 billion on a city-wide slump in VIP play occasioned by slowing economic growth in China and a broad Chinese government crackdown on corruption.
“The decline in net revenue was primarily attributable to lower group-wide rolling chip revenues, partially offset by improved group-wide mass market table games revenues,” the company said.
Adjusted property EBITDA was US$305.7 million, also down about 10 percent from a year earlier.
Melco Crown operates Macau’s City of Dreams and Altira resorts and owns the city’s Mocha Clubs chain of slot halls. The company is building a third major resort in the Cotai resort district called Studio City, which is on track to open in mid-2015, the company said.
