Suntrust Resort Holdings Inc., a subsidiary of LET Group Holdings of Hong Kong, has announced that its Westside City hotel and casino in Manila will not open as planned in 2024.
According to Bilyonaryo Business News, the newest addition to Manila’s resort scene, first scheduled to open by the fourth quarter of this year, won’t welcome its first guests until the first quarter of 2025.
The $1 billion Westside City is being built along Manila Bay near Solaire Resort and Casino, City of Dreams Manila and Okada Manila. The five-star integrated resort (IR) will offer 475 luxury hotel rooms, a 550-capacity ballroom, a 1,100-seat theater, a grand opera house, a 3,000-seat performing arts center, a mall and four movie theaters. The casino will include more than 1,000 slot machines, 281 gaming tables and 134 electronic table games.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer linked the delay to “another year of losses” for Suntrust, which posted a net loss of PHP348 million (US$6.166 million) for 2023. The loss narrowed by 38 percent over 2022, but despite the improvement, last June the company took a PHP25 billion loan from China Banking Corp. to complete the project, and also borrowed $6 million from Major Success Group Ltd., the holding company of the LET Group.
In the company’s annual report, it said it’s completed structural work on the IR and the exterior tower, and is about to undertake mechanical, electrical and plumbing installations. Architectural and interior design work is also underway.
Suntrust added, “Management aims to commence the operations of the main hotel casino in the first quarter of 2025.”
