Caesars vying for BCN World investor position

Developer Enrique Bañuelos  has come to an agreement with the multi-national Caesars Entertainment, the owner of hotel-casinos Las Vegas Caesars, with an eye to participating in the BCN World project. The news should go official today. In order to win three contracts (out of six) auctioned by Generalitat, Bañuelos created an investor holding together with Veremonte, which Ceasers is also now about to join. The last is associated with Hard Rock Café and Chinese Melco Crown.

Each casino and hotel in the complex will span 30.000 square meters. The minimum investment demanded by the Catalonian authority amounts to €300 million. The entire project is would involve a total area of 300.000 square meters.

The Catalan Parliament recently passed a law allowing new activities, such as gambling, to take place within a special area called the CRT. The Recreational Tourism Centre (CRT) is located south of Barcelona between the cities of Salou and Vilaseca and near Tarragona.

The law includes credit regulation for casino customers, a tax rate for casinos of 10 percent on gross gambling revenue and allows for the construction of up to six integrated resorts.

The first phase deadline will allow for the selection of a short-list of bidders to proceed to the second stage. Caesars is planning to invest 500 million euros (USD 673 million) on a casino resort, Europa Press reported, citing unnamed sources.

Earlier this year, Melco International signed a memorandum with Spain’s Veremonte – the international group in charge of the project – committing to the development of a 35,000 square meter casino similar to the City of Dreams Casino in Macau within the BCN World. According to the memorandum, Melco will also build 18,000 apartments and several hotels.