http://www.asiaone.com/a1news/20060527_story1_1.html Quote:
Las Vegas Sands wins Marina Bay IR bid
By Krist Boo
May 27, 2006
The Straits Times
..
It promised to pump in $3.85 billion in investments, the largest amount of the four in a hotly-contested race that spanned 15 months.
Add to it another $1.2 billion in land costs, and The Marina Bay Sands will be the most expensive casino resort ever built.
Sands, owner of The Venetian in Las Vegas, won the hearts of a panel of judging architects with a design which had three slanting hotel towers overlooking three low-rise waterfront domes with roofs like waves.
Its trump card was its promise to bring convention visitors to Singapore with a 110,000 sq m centre. That is half of the convention space Singapore has earmarked for the downtown business district.
This pledge, and its offerings of an ArtScience museum devoted to the exploration of art and science and the connections between them, two performing theatres and six celebrity chefs, gave it top marks in tourism appeal, a category which counted for 40 per cent of the total score.
Singapore is aiming to double tourist arrivals to 17 million and triple tourism receipts to $30 billion by 2015.
The Sands is expected to add $2.7 billion, or 0.8 per cent, to the Singapore economy by 2015.
Sands, which is also expanding its current properties in Vegas and Macau, said last night that it will deliver on its promise to open its IR here in 2009.
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Who amongst you would come to this.
I'll try to find larger pictures.
This is a huge project for Singapore - another one is coming up in Sentosa - I wonder how much of an international audience this would attract. It's a big gamble indeed for Sands.