New hotel rooms at Encore
During Wynn Resorts first-quarter earnings call last month, CEO Matt Maddox announced plans to upgrade the company’s peninsula property, Wynn Macau, to the tune of $100 million. The renovation will give a new look to rooms at the Encore Hotel and add more non-gaming facilities.
“This will include reinvigorating our regional casino, building two new restaurants there, taking out a lot of the exterior junket space that’s not productive and making that a vibrant atmosphere,” Maddox said. “We think the returns to our shareholders will be quite impressive when we are finished with that.” The renovation will kick off this year.
Maddox added that Wynn Macau is “reprioritizing where we want to spend our capital based on where we think we can get more immediate growth. I have re-prioritized spending money in Macau, looking at those projects and in what’s going to attract new customers and keep our customers at those properties longer.”
According to Inside Asian Gaming, Maddox added that the company was also working on “two new restaurant concepts” at its Cotai property, Wynn Palace, and is also weighing what to do with 11 acres of undeveloped land adjacent to the property. He also said Wynn may work on a future project with Galaxy Entertainment Group. Last month Galaxy acquired a 4.9 percent stake in Wynn Resorts.
“Because both operators, Wynn and Galaxy, are focused on quality and on experience, I think that as international jurisdictions open up we could potentially work together to jointly examine those,” Maddox said. “We certainly haven’t made any agreements to do that, but our operating styles and philosophies are very similar and it’s something that could potentially be a value to both companies in the future.”
