$250 million in renovations to commence
PCI Gaming Authority, the Pennsylvania casino licensee owned by Wind Creek Hospitality (WCH), announced action to officially close on the agreement under which the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem is being sold to WCH, an arm of Alabama’s Poarch Band of Creek Indians, by original licensee Sands Bethworks, a subsidiary of Las Vegas Sands Corporation.
The $1.3 billion sale closes some 14 months after its original announcement. WCH already has announced that it will immediately begin a $190 million hotel expansion, part of $250 million worth of improvements pledged by the new owner of the property, which now will officially be called Wind Creek Bethlehem.
The hotel project, which is anticipated to take two years to complete, will add 276 rooms, bringing the total rooms at the property to 558, plus another 42,000 square feet of meeting space, bringing the property’s total meeting and convention space to 69,000 square feet. WCH also is initiating plans to develop the former Bethlehem Steel No. 2 Machine Shop, part of the historic Bethlehem Steel Corporation plant that is the site of the casino, into a 300,000-square-foot indoor adventure/water park and hotel.
WCH issued a statement immediately after the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board voted unanimously to approve the transaction in a special board meeting.
“We are pleased with the decision of PGCB and anticipate moving quickly to close the transaction,” WCH President and CEO Jay Dorris said. “We look forward to welcoming all the Sands Bethlehem employees to the Wind Creek family.”
These will be added to improvements made by Las Vegas Sands over the 10 years it owned the property, including the original 282-room AAA Four Diamond hotel, a 150,000-square-foot retail mall and a multi-purpose event center.
The former Sands casino contains a 183,000-square-foot gaming floor with 3,000 slots and electronic table games, plus 200 live table games that have topped the state industry in terms of revenue. The Sands has consistently been second only to the Parx casino in Bensalem in overall gaming revenue, thanks to a steady stream of high-end Asian play from New York City. (The casino gets 9 million visits a year as the closest full-fledged casino to New York City.)
“We are thankful for the strong foundation that Las Vegas Sands provided for us over the past decade,” said Dorris. “It is exciting to now shift our focus to the future as we begin the process to rebrand the property to Wind Creek Bethlehem.”
“The purchase of the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem is a valuable addition to the tribe’s existing gaming portfolio,” added Poarch Band of Creek Indians Tribal Chair and CEO Stephanie Bryan. “This investment will expand and complement our already extensive Wind Creek Hospitality brand’s offerings, and bring added economic growth to the Lehigh Valley.”
In a statement, Las Vegas Sands said the sale will permit the company to focus on new construction plans for its integrated resorts in Macau and Singapore, including more than $5.5 billion in renovations and expansions across the two markets.
“The sale represents an important milestone in our company’s long-term strategy and allows us to focus on what we do best—large-scale, tourism-enhancing integrated resort development and returning capital to shareholders,” company CEO Sheldon Adelson said in the statement.
Wind Creek Bethlehem will offer one amenity that Adelson has fought for years to derail—online gaming. The tribe already has submitted its petitions to the gaming board to offer interactive gaming and sports betting.
“One of the advantages that we see … is that rather than put money into an old, tired facility to bring it up, we’re able to take money and expand it and make it better from the outset,” Dorris told PlayPennsylvania.com. “We look for a long-term play. Our objective is to set these properties up so that we can capitalize on what’s there now, make them even more attractive and bring more people to them.”
Dorris summed it up at the gaming board hearing: “Our expectation for this property is it will be the No. 1 resort destination in the Northeast.”
