Clairvest Neem Ventures Co. Ltd., the consortium chosen to develop an integrated resort (IR) in Wakayama, Japan, will produce by a draft development plan for the IR by the end of November.
The plan will be reviewed by government officials and the public and updated in accordance with their feedback by the end of the year.
By February 2022, the plan will have been assessed and approved by the prefecture and the city, according to GGRAsia. By April 28, local authorities must submit their plans to Japan’s national government. Up to three resorts will be permitted in the first phase of the country’s new casino industry.
Clairvest Neem is a subsidiary of Clairvest Group Inc., a Canada-based private-equity management firm. Its proposal for the Wakayama IR scheme is estimated to have an “initial investment” worth JPY470 billion (US$4.3 billion). According to the prefecture’s website, the project would include 569,000 square meters (6.12 million square feet) of gross floor area. The complex is to be built on a manmade island called Marina City.
French casino operator Groupe Partouche SA and AMSE Resorts Japan Co. Ltd. have partnered with Clairvest in its Wakayama scheme. The latter company has been linked to former U.S. casino executive William Weidner, former president of the Las Vegas Sands Corp.
In other Japan IR news, Nagasaki Governor Hodo Nakamura is defending that prefecture’s IR operator selection process. He said the choice of Casinos Austria as the preferred partner was made separately from an integrity investigation in which two other candidates were reportedly asked to withdraw. The losing bidders, Oshidori International Development and NIKI Chyau (Parkview) Group, have assailed the RFP process in Nagasaki as flawed and even unethical.
“Nagasaki prefecture had to make evaluations and decisions regarding the results of the integrity survey before attending essential legal consultations,” Nakamura said. “Thus we did not disclose the contents to the evaluation committee.”
Casinos Austria scored 697 points under Nagasaki’s RFP evaluation system. Oshidori came in second with 682.8 points and NIKI was third with 667.1 points.
