When SJM opens the doors of its Lisbon Palace, COTAI will have nine integrated casinos and resorts (IR).
Given the lack of space on the site and the repeated unwillingness of Macau policymakers to build casinos on the new landfills, these nine gaming and tourism complexes will be a very representative sample of what we can expect from gambling in Macau in the future.
These nine IRs have very different histories, varied contexts and innumerable constraints (one of them the lack of information) that make any comparison difficult.
Even so, the almost 72,000 square metres of MGM COTAI make it the smallest of the nine, the only one boasting less than 100,000 square metres of construction.
City of Dreams (115,000 sq.m) and Studio City (130,000 sq.m) are the closest.
The big difference lies is in the construction deadline. Melco took three years to open its two properties on COTAI (although work on Studio City began in 2007 it barely progressed beyond its foundations, resuming in 2012), while MGM necessitated 4.5 years.
Yet, in absolute terms the latest of Macau’s gaming and tourism complexes is not the most time consuming.
Sands COTAI Central was started in 2006 and only opened in April 2012 – around 6 years, therefore. ‘Work started in 2006 but the project went through a period of suspension due to the global economic crisis. During this period, work on the project came to a complete stop and it was therefore quite a challenge to restart the project,’ according to the main contractor, Hsin Chong.
About six years is also what it took to build Phase 1 of the Galaxy.
In this case, we must take into account that we are talking about one of the largest construction areas of COTAI (550,000 sq.m) although the company recognises that a project that should have taken three years – 2008 was the year it should have been ready – ended up taking twice as long.
‘Under the influence of the global financial turmoil, the Group made a strategic decision to slow the pace of development in COTAI with the aim of completing construction and opening the project as economic conditions improved. We wish to reconfirm that construction continues on COTAI, but at a slower pace,’ we can read in the company report for 2008. The following year Galaxy set the new date of ‘early 2011’, which was eventually confirmed.
If SJM inaugurates its Lisboa Palace in February of next year as some analysts anticipate, while the company is still talking about opening in 2018, SJM’s first IR will have taken exactly five years to build (February 2014 – February 2019).
This is followed by the four years it took to build Wynn Palace and The Parisian Macao.
And then the fastest – the ones that took about three years. We have already mentioned two – Studio City and City of Dreams – but the grand prize goes to The Venetian Macao: only three years to build a massive 980,000 square metres. That is, the shortest term for the largest building area.
Most expensive and cheapest
If the construction deadlines for the various IRs of COTAI are very dependent upon the economic situation – internal and, above all, external – which led several concessionaires to postpone their inaugurations, even for the problems of financing their works, the final costs are more dependent upon the commencement of construction.
There are obviously other factors to take into account such as the size of the project and the equipment placed but as you may realise pre or post-2010 made all the difference to the construction bottom line.
Building in 2004, as did The Venetian Macao, City of Dreams and Galaxy, cost considerably less than doing so a decade later.
It can be said with some margin of confidence that IRs built in the past 10 years, even the behemoths such as The Venetian Macao and Galaxy, came in at less than MOP20 billion, while almost all of those inaugurated during the course of this decade surpassed that barrier. Two exceptions: The Parisian Macao, finished in 2016, posted a revealed cost of precisely MOP20 billion, while Studio City (2015) posted MOP18.4 billion.
Costs can vary significantly: Sands COTAI Central cost MOP32 billion, Wynn Palace cost MOP32.8 billion and Lisboa Palace MOP37 billion – the latter being far and away the most expensive.
A final note that the IRs built in COTAI have generally exceeded estimates. Two examples: The Venetian Macao forecast MOP14 billion but cost some MOP4 billion more; MGM COTAI stood at MOP27 billion, six billion more than originally forecast.
SJM: the most expensive ever; MGM: the smallest; The Venetian Macao: the fastest to build on the largest area
| Integrated Resort | Build Time * |
| The Venetian Macao | 3 years |
| City of Dreams | 3 years |
| Studio City Macau | 3 years |
| Wynn Palace | 4 years |
| The Parisian Macao | 4 years |
| MGM COTAI | 4.5 years |
| Lisboa Palace | 5 years? |
| Galaxy Macau (Phase I) | 6 years |
| Sands COTAI Central | 6 years |
*approximate values
