Intensive work on MGM Osaka, to be Japan’s first integrated resort (IR) with casino, is due to start in days, after Osaka’s city government transferred control of a parcel of land earmarked for it, to the developing entity, Osaka IR KK.
That is according to information reviewed by GGRAsia’s Japan correspondent.
A total of 46 hectares (113.7 acres) on Yumeshima island (pictured), a land-reclamation zone in Osaka Bay, was formally handed over on Tuesday.
According to the IR District Development Plan for the resort – which is a JPY1.27 trillion (US$8.65 billion currently) venture between MGM Resorts International, Japan’s Orix Corp and a number of minority local investors – a total of 49 hectares has been earmarked for the scheme.
The timing of the land handover was linked to the announcement that Osaka IR KK had on September 6 waived the right to terminate the implementation compact for the scheme.
However, 3 hectares of the total 49 hectares is being allocated to Expo 2025 Osaka, a project next door to the IR site.
The Expo event, with global scope, is due to be held for 184 days from April 13 to October 13 next year. The Expo overlaps with a period when large-scale development work on MGM Osaka is due to be under way.
The Expo organisers had expressed concern that there would be noise and a diminishing of air quality for visitors to the event.
According to information from the Osaka authorities disclosed on September 10, the 3 hectares allocated to the Expo will be used to store construction materials for the Expo during both the construction period and event period.
In early September, the governor of Osaka prefecture, Yoshimura Hirofumi, said that piling work on MGM Osaka would be put back by two months, so that the peak of noise disruption will be shifted to after the Expo has concluded.
The IR District Development Plan – updated on April 19 – states the construction schedule, with IR preparatory work starting “around summer” this year; IR main construction work to begin “around April” 2025; build work to be finished “around spring” 2030, and the scheme opened “around autumn” 2030.
