Uruguay: Eleven groups interested in Carrasco Hotel Casino

Montevideo Council will tender Casino Carrasco Hotel immediately after the Parliament sanctions the law that authorizes it. It is expected to open its doors in two years and a half.

The Director of Economic Development and Regional Integration of Montevideo Council (IMM), Luis Polakof, said that the political will of Mayor Ricardo Ehrlich is to call to the tender to start with the 120-day period to present projects.

Polakof indicated that, as none of the projects presented was declared of municipal interest; none of them achieved five extra points for the evaluation, which leaves them in equal conditions regarding the new projects to be presented now. He also assured that the other groups showed their interest in operating the hotel casino.

According to Polakof, casino hotels are built with more than 300 rooms, but Carrasco hotel has 80, so the casino is crucial to attract high-level tourists. He points that it is important to remark that “it is a local casino that will have a private administration, so it is a 30-year concession”.

Hotel Casino Carrasco was inaugurated in 1921. It has 80 rooms. Its rooms were famous in the fifties due to its Carnival balls with international orchestras. In the seventies, the rooms of the hotel gathered the Latin American military forces in a conference where they planned the repression against democratic forces in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.

In 1997, a private group was in charge of the hotel, and the concession concluded on the current year.