GGRAsia – Success Universe wants gaming in Ponte 16 extension

Success Universe wants gaming in Ponte 16 extension

Feb 22, 2017 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

Hong Kong-listed casino investor Success Universe Group Ltd says it is yet to submit to the Macau government a new construction plan for the third phase of its majority-owned Ponte 16 (pictured), a casino and hotel complex near Macau’s Inner Harbour.

The third phase, an extension of the existing property, will include a “mass-oriented” shopping mall, the firm’s executive director and deputy chairman, Hoffman Ma Ho Man, told GGRAsia.

“We’ll also strive to add gaming there [in the third phase],” Mr Ma said. “But this is a decision that we can only confirm later, once all the design plans for the extension are approved by the government,” he added.

“In the plan that we’ve submitted before, parts of phase three involved piling works to be done directly on water … but local authorities have said that they didn’t want any buildings to be constructed above the water,” said Mr Ma.

The executive said the firm has been making “considerable” changes to the phase three design as a consequence.

“The expansion now has to be built on the existing site [of Ponte 16], and that means we may have to sacrifice the existing podium of Ponte 16 for accommodating the expansion,” Mr Ma said.

The Success Universe executive said he hoped to submit soon to the government a new construction plan, couldn’t provide an exact timeframe to do so.

The planned extension would have a gross floor area of approximately 40,000 square metres (430,556 sq feet). The budget would be in the range of HKD700 million (US$90.2 million) to HKD800 million, according to Mr Ma.

According to the firm’s 2016 interim report, as of June 30, the casino at Ponte 16 had 109 gaming tables, consisting of 94 mass gaming tables; nine high-limit tables and six VIP tables. The report did not mention the number of gaming machines at the property’s casino.

Macau casino operator SJM Holdings Ltd supplies the gaming licence to the Ponte 16 property. SJM Holdings is also an equity partner in the Ponte 16 project.