The Sheraton is scheduled to open in 2008; the St. Regis in 2009. Starwood sources say the Sheraton will be the largest on the Cotai Strip and Starwood's largest hotel globally. Representatives for Miguel Ko, president, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Asia Pacific, couldn't be reached by GlobeSt.com's publication deadline to learn the development cost of the projects.

However, construction sources who have followed the development progress of the master-planned Cotai Strip tell GlobeSt.com the Sheraton and the St. Regis projects will probably come in with a hard construction cost of $4 billion. They base their estimate on a $750,000-per-room hotel construction cost at the Sheraton and the St. Regis, and $500,000 per apartment at St. Regis Residences. Sources also point to the $1.8-billion construction cost of the 3,000-suite, 10.5-million-sf Venetian Macao Resort also under construction on the Cotai Strip by Las Vegas Sands Corp. That per-room construction cost comes to $600,000.

"We were so busy with our design and pre-construction activities that we did not even hold a formal groundbreaking for these sites," Las Vegas Sands Corp. executive vice president Brad Stone says in a prepared statement. "We are now at the point where you will visibly see the structure rise from the ground and take shape."