Regions International
July 1, 2008
By: Gail Kalinoski, Contributing Editor
After a year of planning, work on a seven-phase, $1.5 billion hotel, casino and recreational complex at a 2,500-acre resort area in Kazakhstan is getting under way with the first part of the project due to come online in about two years.
When completed between 2020 and 2022, the project at Borobaye Lakes Resort will have six hotels, six casinos, two championship golf courses, residences and a variety of recreational and leisure facilities, Andrew Grant, president of Grant Leisure Inc., told CPN today. Based in Montecito, Calif., Grant Leisure is working with Civic Arts and Eric Kuhne & Associates to provide the leisure, hospitality, casino and entertainment consulting on the project.
FTG Development of Istanbul and BF Global of Astana, Kazakhstan, are the joint venture developers. The first phase will include two hotels with a total of 750 hotel rooms and 100 villas and two casinos with a total of 80,000 square feet, Grant said today. He said site preparation, soil boring and infrastructure work has already begun at the site, which is located nearly three hours south of Astana, the capitol of Kazakhstan.
Although the equity is in place for the project, Grant said the team is waiting for final confirmation from the home bank of Kazakhstan. “Construction is going to start sometime in September or October,” he added. Grant said the developers are in talks with hotel and casino operators now and expects decisions to be made by September on which companies will run the resorts and gaming properties. He said the country is investing about $1 billion in infrastructure to get visitors to the site, including a new motorway from Astana.
The lake resort, which Grant compares to Lake Tahoe in the United States, is expected to attract tourists and gamblers from Russia, China, Turkey, Korea and India. “They can’t gamble in China except for Macau. Russia is on your doorstep and India has a huge emerging market,” Grant noted.
Gambling resorts are growing in popularity across the globe, particularly in Eastern Europe, where governments are trying to get the casinos out of the cities where they are controlled by organized crime, Grant said. “They are taking the licenses away from all the rough and toughies and handing them to legitimate developers. They are using them as a hook and tools to build tourism,” he said.
Grant Leisure is also working on a $500 million casino project, Pagcor, in Manila, Philippines, he said. “The thing is, the gambling market is pretty well saturated in the United States,” he said.
Grant’s firm is providing consulting and master plan work to Texas Pacific Group, which along with Apollo Global Management L.P., acquired Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. for $17.1 billion earlier this year, for its Las Vegas holdings. He said the group owns 371 acres in Las Vegas that it plans to redevelop. Asked about a Wall Street Journal article today that noted the economic slowdown is beginning to affect the Las Vegas gaming industry, Grant said he expected the economy to have an impact there until the end of 2009. In the meantime, he said, they will “be beefing up their promotions.”
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By: Gail Kalinoski, Contributing Editor
After a year of planning, work on a seven-phase, $1.5 billion hotel, casino and recreational complex at a 2,500-acre resort area in Kazakhstan is getting under way with the first part of the project due to come online in about two years.
When completed between 2020 and 2022, the project at Borobaye Lakes Resort will have six hotels, six casinos, two championship golf courses, residences and a variety of recreational and leisure facilities, Andrew Grant, president of Grant Leisure Inc., told CPN today. Based in Montecito, Calif., Grant Leisure is working with Civic Arts and Eric Kuhne & Associates to provide the leisure, hospitality, casino and entertainment consulting on the project.
FTG Development of Istanbul and BF Global of Astana, Kazakhstan, are the joint venture developers. The first phase will include two hotels with a total of 750 hotel rooms and 100 villas and two casinos with a total of 80,000 square feet, Grant said today. He said site preparation, soil boring and infrastructure work has already begun at the site, which is located nearly three hours south of Astana, the capitol of Kazakhstan.
Although the equity is in place for the project, Grant said the team is waiting for final confirmation from the home bank of Kazakhstan. “Construction is going to start sometime in September or October,” he added. Grant said the developers are in talks with hotel and casino operators now and expects decisions to be made by September on which companies will run the resorts and gaming properties. He said the country is investing about $1 billion in infrastructure to get visitors to the site, including a new motorway from Astana.
The lake resort, which Grant compares to Lake Tahoe in the United States, is expected to attract tourists and gamblers from Russia, China, Turkey, Korea and India. “They can’t gamble in China except for Macau. Russia is on your doorstep and India has a huge emerging market,” Grant noted.
Gambling resorts are growing in popularity across the globe, particularly in Eastern Europe, where governments are trying to get the casinos out of the cities where they are controlled by organized crime, Grant said. “They are taking the licenses away from all the rough and toughies and handing them to legitimate developers. They are using them as a hook and tools to build tourism,” he said.
Grant Leisure is also working on a $500 million casino project, Pagcor, in Manila, Philippines, he said. “The thing is, the gambling market is pretty well saturated in the United States,” he said.
Grant’s firm is providing consulting and master plan work to Texas Pacific Group, which along with Apollo Global Management L.P., acquired Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. for $17.1 billion earlier this year, for its Las Vegas holdings. He said the group owns 371 acres in Las Vegas that it plans to redevelop. Asked about a Wall Street Journal article today that noted the economic slowdown is beginning to affect the Las Vegas gaming industry, Grant said he expected the economy to have an impact there until the end of 2009. In the meantime, he said, they will “be beefing up their promotions.”
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