JV Erecting Estimated $4B Hotel Complex in Macao

COTAI STRIP, MACAO-In what construction sources say is the largest hotel development joint venture since the casino gaming monopoly was removed in Macao in 2001, Starwood Hotels & Resorts World Wide Inc. and Las Vegas Sands Corp. are developing two projects. The projects are the 4,000-room Sheraton Macao and the 860-room St. Regis Hotel & Residences which will have 460 hotel rooms and 400 apartments covering 1.2 million sf.

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.