PH Resorts Group Holdings, Inc. filed a progress report with the Philippine Stock Exchange this week that revealed the hospitality company’s Emerald Bay Resort and Casino on the Mactan Peninsula of Cebu will open in phases later than originally planned. Rather than a soft launch in the spring and phase I opening in the 3rd quarter of 2022, the first phase will now open in early 2023.
PH Resorts, formerly known as Philippine H2O Ventures Corp. is the parent company of PH Travel and Leisure, the holding company for the hospitality and gambling arms of Udenna Group, which also includes TheBase in Clark.
The company recently announced through a filing with the PSE that TheBase development had surrendered a provisional gambling license and suspended construction in order to focus on Emerald Bay among other developments.
Resort is 40.1 Percent Complete
Monday’s progress report also showed that phase 1 of the Emerald Bay development is over 40% complete. The company said that the Group is “working closely with its primary design (Steelman Partners), project management (Tenman HK Limited) and construction (Terp Asia Construction Corporation) teams to ensure that phase 1 of Emerald Bay is completed and will commence full operations on budget and on track for the targeted opening in the first quarter of 2023.”
Monday’s filing was another in a series of resets the company has done in response to ongoing aggravating and mitigating circumstances and factors, some presumably related to the world health crisis of 2020.
Emerald Bay is billed as the Crown Jewel of Philippine Resorts and intended to rival the urban resorts of Macau and Manila. It would be the Philippines’ first large-scale hospitality development anchored by casino gaming outside Metro Manilla.
Full Build-out in 2027
The resort is being built on 12.4 hectares (13.5 acre) with a beachfront about 30 minutes or 3.7 miles from Mactan-Cebu International Airport.
The first phase will include a 4,154 sq m (44,700 sq ft) casino floor with over 120 tables and 600 slot machines with Emerald Bay holding a 7-year monopoly for gaming on the Peninsula. The phase also sees a five-star hotel with 270 keys, a single pool, about half a dozen eateries and bars as well as about 300 meters of prime beachfront shoreline available to guests.
The second phase at full buildout in 2027 will roughly double the casino space to 8,210 square meters (88,372 sq ft) of gaming floor with 729+ slot machines, 780 five star rooms and five luxury villas along with 4 pools, meeting and convention facilities and a total of 16 food and beverage purveyors. The full beachfront will be open to guests.
Regarding the completion process on the ground, the filing stated: “… the Company is working with 24 different consultants in relation to the design and construction, and 25 different contractors in relation to the construction and fit-out, of the various aspects of Emerald Bay and intends to work with certain additional consultants and approximately 45 additional contractors in connection with the design, construction and fit-out of Emerald Bay.“