RAZON-LED a Bloomberry Resorts Corp. is readying the next phase of the expansion of its flagship Solaire Resort and Casino in the Manila Entertainment City in Pasay, promising more and bigger facilities than the current one.
Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) Chairman Cristino L. Naguiat Jr. told reporters that Bloomberry Chairman and CEO Enrique K. Razon Jr. promised that the expanded Solaire will be much bigger and will offer up to 2,000 additional hotel rooms.
“Definitely, the expanded Solaire will be much bigger. Their design, I think, is already completed,” Naguiat said at the sidelines of Solaire’s opening of its new $500-million hotel tower.
According to Pagcor rules, the number of gaming tables and other gaming machines depends on the number of rooms that an operator would build.
Thomas Arasi, Solaire president and COO, confirmed that the
company already has the design for the next phase of expansion, but these are “very early designs.”
“And we’re doing that design because we want to be ready if and when we decide to go ahead with Phase 2. We have not made any decision yet to go ahead with Phase 2. Fortunately, we already have the land and we have the license and we have an ongoing operation here so, of course, you know we think, eventually, we will do, but there is no firm corporate decision,” Arasi said.
Solaire has the third-largest land size in the Entertainment City at about 16 hectares. The largest is the Manila Bay Resorts of Kazuo Okada’s Tiger Resort Leisure and Entertainment Inc. at 44 hectares, followed by Andrew Tan-led Resorts World Bayshore at 30.5 hectares. The City of Dreams Manila has the smallest with 6 hectares.
Razon earlier said the size of the expansion of Solaire would still depend on the gaming-market conditions in the coming years.
“We have a rough plan. Our property has a master plan, but, if the market justifies it, we will implement Phase 2,” Razon said.
“In Phase 2, there will be a very big podium, 15,000-seater convention center, a much bigger mall and more of everything. We do not have an estimate yet, but it will be bigger than Phases 1 and 1-A,” Razon said.
At the moment, Bloomberry has already spent some $1.2 billion for the construction of Solaire.
The company said it would also get a branded hotel for the next phase
of development. With the expansion, it would increase its gaming tables to 650 from the current 360 and the total electronic gaming tables to 3,000 from 1,711.
Bloomberry earlier said that it reached a profit of P3.3 billion for the nine-month period ending in September, or a turnaround from the P868-million loss reported last year.
Gross revenues, on the other hand, more than doubled to P22.44 billion, from last year’s P9.88 billion.
It said the strong earnings momentum in the third quarter has also allowed Bloomberry to realize P811 million in retained earnings from a deficit of P2.48 billion at the beginning of the year.
For the third quarter alone, it reported gross revenues of P7.67 billion, 58 percent higher than the P4.87 billion last year, with profit growing more than sixfold year on year to P992 million, from P165 million.