USD 3.5 billion proposal for second casino resort

A consortium led by resort builder Mark Advent said a 10-storey waterfall will be the centrepiece of its USD 3.5 billion proposal to build and run Singapore’s second casino resort.

Advent’s privately-held Eighth Wonder and its three partners said their plans for the 49-hectare complex located on Singapore’s resort island of Sentosa would include also a hotel built around a football stadium affiliated to Brazilian soccer star Pele and a spa retreat run by new-age guru Deepak Chopra.

The consortium, which includes Mississippi-based Isle of Capri Casinos, Australian tycoon James Packer’s Publishing and Broadcasting and Macau’s Melco International Development, has submitted the most expensive among three bids submitted for the project.

Advent said the resort, which will have 10 hotels offering more than 2,100 rooms, would be called Harry’s Island, after a fictitious adventurer he created nicknamed ’Hurricane Harry’. „He is a combination of James Bond and Indiana Jones, with a little bit of Hemingway thrown in for good measure,“ Advent told reporters at a briefing.

The complex should generate USD 3.5 billion in visitor spending by 2015, allowing the consortium to break even five years after its scheduled opening in 2010, he said. The group is up against a USD 3.1 billion bid by Malaysia’s Genting and a USD 3.3 billion proposal submitted by Bahamas-based Kerzner International and Singapore developer CapitaLand.

The government will award the project in early December.