Okada Manila set to open in December
By Zsarlene B. Chua
IT’S FINALLY happening.
After a year of delays, Tiger Resort and Leisure Entertainment, Inc.’s integrated mega casino-resort will be opening before the year ends.
The new 44-hectare addition to Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.’s (PAGCOR) Entertainment City — called Okada Manila — is set to launch its first phase, a 14-hectare development, by December, according to Tiger Resort member of the board, Antonio O. Cojuangco during the brand launch on July 20 at Whitespace in Makati City.
“It’s going to be in December but it’s hard to pinpoint the exact date. Internally, we have one (a timetable)… even the official launch will be this year, we just don’t know the exact date of the official launch,” he told reporters shortly after the event.
Poised to be the largest integrated resort in the country, Okada Manila will have a Y-shaped hotel with two wings, with 993 hotel rooms spread across 15 floors. Accommodations will range from 60-sq.m. hotel rooms to 1,400-sq.m. villas. The casino, meanwhile will have over 500 table games and over 3,000 electronic gaming machines.
The property will also have an indoor beach club, an 8,361-sq.m. entertainment venue, and a two-hectare dancing fountain — the largest the country has ever seen. Over 8,400 sq.m. will be given to shopping areas, capable of hosting “over 50 premiere and luxury brands” according to a company press release. There will also be 21 dining outlets including “signature restaurants by Michelin-starred chefs,” plus Yu Lei, Museum Café, Enbu, and Goryo Korean Barbecue, among others.
The Tiger Resort development had previously had several setbacks including difficulty in finding local partners.
The development also requested an extension from the state-run gaming regulator which pushed back the completion of what was previously called Manila Bay Resorts to Dec. 31, this year from the original opening date of March 31, 2015. Tiger Resorts attributed the delay to the “increased scale of the project,” PAGCOR Vice-President for Gaming Licensing and Development Francis P. Hernando was quoted as saying in a July 31 BusinessWorld article.
Already, $2.4 billion has been invested for the completion of the first phase of Okada Manila, and, according to Takahiro Usui, COO of Tiger Resort, the amount may go as high as $3 billion.
“[The] $2.4 billion is only for development, it does not include other costs. So $2.4 billion is just investment. If we include everything, probably phase one [alone] will cross $3 billion,” he told reporters during the launch.
“It depends on what [Mr. Okada wants]. Mr. Okada keeps on adding more things,” said Mr. Cojuangco, referring to Kazuo Okada, the Japanese gaming mogul who is the chairman of Tiger Resort.
The whole property will have “around three to four phases” before it is fully developed, said Mr. Usui, though he said that the second phase won’t start immediately after the completion of the first.
“Probably phase two will take another year or two because we have another huge development [in the works]. Phase two is very, very groundwork, we are focusing on completing phase one,” he said before adding that they might be developing one phase “probably… every two years.”
“We will finish that (the first phase), look at our cash flow, build the plans for the rest of the area, and then we determine,” Mr. Cojuangco added.
Mr. Cojuangco, meanwhile, revealed that Mr. Okada has plans of developing property in places like Coron, Palawan.
“Palawan is definitely one area. There’s also several islands in Davao which are also promising, and up north. I think Palawan will come right after finishing [phase one]. We’re focusing on finishing this [development]. Hopefully, next year we start developing in (Coron), Palawan,” he said.
