Lawrence Ho’s City of Dreams became a fully-fledged Vegas-style integrated resort last night. We weren’t invited, but from what we hear, the premiere of Franco Dragone’s House of Dancing Water went down very well with guests. Chinese media have generally been giving the show glowing reviews, even while most English media have been expressing skepticism over whether the show can be a financial success. As regular readers of this newsletter will know, we agree with both.
We were more impressed yesterday, however, by news of COD’s deal with the government on its unused land parcel. For just US$30m, COD gets to change its design for the towers planned for the piece of land between its northern end and the Macau University of Science and Technology. It can now build 42% more space into its planned five-star hotel and about 32% into its apartment-hotel in the other tower. The apartment-hotel, which may not be sold off as individual units, will now apparently be a four-star property.Why has COD done this? We understand the thinking. Hotel rooms are important for big resorts on Cotai. Once Lot 5&6 opens, even though it will be connected by walkway to COD, it will have more than 6,000 rooms available, mostly in the 4-star range. No resort can ignore this segment of the market, and COD’s Hard Rock hotel is just too small. The resort also clearly wants to build more traffic for its main gaming floor, and adding hotels and apartments can only help in that regard.
The government department responsible for the deal went out of its way to explain to local media that the apartment-hotel could not be sold as strata-title. Just in case anyone across the road at Venetian was listening. But things can change with time. Pay a premium, and the world may be your oyster. Stay tuned.
Used with permission & copyright to IntelMacau
