Las Vegas Sands Corp. ended a 10-year run in Pennsylvania Friday, closing the sale of its Sands Bethlehem resort for $1.3 billion.
The transaction with Wind Creek Hospitality, an affiliate of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians of Alabama, was announced in March 2018 and was approved Wednesday by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.
Las Vegas Sands opened the property in 2009 on the site of the historic Bethlehem Steel Plant. The resort is roughly 80 miles from New York City and includes a 282-room hotel, 183,000-square-foot casino floor, a 150,000-square-foot retail mall and an events center.
The property will be renamed Wind Creek Bethlehem and is the company’s 10th casino for Wind Creek. The company plans to expand the property, including adding a 300-room hotel at a cost of $190 million.
Also, Wind Creek plans to convert the property’s Bethlehem Steel Machine Shop into a water park with a 400-room hotel. The company said it would spend an estimated $250 million on the expansion.
In a statement, Las Vegas Sands said the sale allows the company to focus on its development efforts in Macau and Singapore. The company plans to invest more than $5.5 billion in renovations and expansions to its existing resorts in the two markets, which, combined, provided the Las Vegas-based gaming giant approximately 85 percent of its total quarterly revenue stream.
“The sale represents an important milestone in our company’s long-term strategy and allows us to focus on what we do best – large-scale, tourism-enhancing integrated resort development and returning capital to shareholders,” company CEO Sheldon Adelson said in a statement.
Las Vegas Sands is planning to spend more than $2 billion in Macau over the next two years, primarily on the renovation, expansion and rebranding of the its Sands Cotai Central complex into The Londoner Macau, a $1.35 billion London-themed resort first announced in 2017.
In addition to creating The Londoner, the company is spending $400 million for the 370-suite St. Regis Tower Suites and $450 million for the 290-suite Four Seasons Tower Suites. Both are expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2020.
The Londoner project is being constructed in phases to create minimal disruption and is expected throughout 2020 and 2021.
In April, Las Vegas Sands said it would spend $3.3 billion on the Marina Bay Sands resort in Singapore, which will include a 15,000-seat arena, a 1,000-room hotel, and additional convention space. Expansion to the resort’s casino – one of two in the island nation – is not part of the project.
Adelson said the company is also “aggressively pursuing” an integrated resort development in Osaka, Japan.
“We are focused on delivering projects that bring positive economic benefit to our host communities and provide strong returns for our shareholders,” Adelson said.
Howard Stutz is the executive editor of CDC Gaming Reports. He can be reached at hstutz@cdcgamingreports.com. Follow @howardstutz on Twitter.
