Meanwhile, Gold Coast braces for a boom
Queensland has suddenly become the center of the casino industry in Australia.
With Hong Kong businessman Tony Fung abandoning plans to develop a casino at Yorkeys Knob in Queensland, Australia, the city of Cairns is angling for the available regional gaming license, according to Casino News Daily.
Earlier this year Fung removed the casino component from his planned $8 billion Aquis Great Barrier Reef Resort, saying changing market conditions mean a casino is no longer viable.
Queensland Treasurer Curtis Pitt said he would get behind a casino project in Cairns, and added that its proximity to an international airport makes it a good site for an integrated resort for inbound tourists. A major hotel and casino development is just what the city needs, said Pitt. But the Chronicle reports that the city of Toowoomba in southern Queensland also wants to be the next Las Vegas.
Tourism Tropical North Queensland CEO Alex de Waal said the region’s “highly compelling attractiveness” should attract major bidders who hope to draw Chinese customers.
Farther south, the majority of Gold Coasters are enthusiastic about a planned casino resort there. A recent Sunday Mail poll found that more 45 percent residents support the plan, close to 40 percent are opposed and around 17 percent are undecided. The resort would be developed by Chinese-owned ASF and operated by James Packer’s Crown group. It would be located between Sea World and Palazzo Versace. Under the proposal Sea World would also double in size, add a water park and become the biggest theme park in the country, reported the Mail. Work on the project could begin as early as next year.
Queensland Managing Director Brinton Keath said the area is ready to “take over as the apartment capital of Australia, with Melbourne and Brisbane apartment markets remaining stagnant and Sydney unaffordable for the majority.
“Never before has the city had record interest rates, record low unemployment, record low supply of apartments on the market and the largest infrastructure project ever commenced in the city all potentially to occur at once,” he said. The project “could carry the Gold Coast economy for at least a decade” and reduce employment levels from an already healthy 5.8 percent to as low as 3 percent.
Meanwhile, casino operator Crown Resorts and China-based ASF Consortium have partnered to bring a A$3 billion casino resort aimed at attracting well-heeled Asians to the city of Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia according to the Courier Mail.
The project could have official sanction from the cabinet before the end of the year.
The casino resort would be on five hectares in the Southport Spit and would have a casino, residential and office spaces—all adjacent to the Palazzo Versace and Sea World, which would be expanded in conjunction with the project, making the combined facility the largest theme park in the country. It would have seven hotel towers, seven restaurants offering luxury cuisine.
To facilitate bringing traffic to the resort, the ASF Consortium proposes building an immense bridge similar to the one that connects the Florida Keys to link the Spit with Southport.
With the approval of the government Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk a foregone conclusion, building could begin as soon as March of next year.
Crown Resorts would operate the casino, said the Courier Mail, although so far nothing has been signed between the two companies.
Last year Crown Resorts was the unsuccessful bidder for the right to build the A$3 billion Queen’s Wharf casino in Brisbane, losing that plum to Destination Brisbane Consortium. The new casino will rival that casino in scope.
Meanwhile, in a separate but related development, the Ville Resort Casino in Queensland, formerly known as the Jupiters Townsville Hotel & Casino will begin a $35 million redevelopment this week.
In October of 2014 Chris Morris, founder of Computershare, purchased the casino from Echo Entertainment Group for $70 million and promised to spend $20 million on what he called “the worst-performing casino in Australia.” Morris envisions transforming the casino into a moneymaker. The amount of money he plans to spend has grown to $35 million, which is seen as part of the development of his other tourism properties in Queensland.
Morris plans to add three restaurants, a pool, a bar, private cabanas and a poolside events space. The casino has 280 slots and 25 gaming tables.
