Thanks to new additions to its original design, Wynn Resorts will spend $1.75 billion to build a Boston casino instead of the $1.6 billion it originally planned, Chairman and CEO Steve Wynn told The Boston Globe this week, according to Successful Meetings.
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission awarded the state’s second casino license, and the only casino license in the Greater Boston area, to Wynn Resorts in September. The company intends to develop 30 acres in the Boston suburb of Everett, MA, where plans originally called for a five-star resort with approximately 500 rooms, high-end retail and dining, and meeting space, including a ballroom, the report said.
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Since September, those plans have evolved to include an extra 130 guest rooms; a showroom featuring live entertainment; a gently curving bronze tower reminiscent of Wynn’s Vegas hotels, Wynn and Encore; and a 2, 000-pound sculpture of Popeye by artist Jeff Koons, which Wynn purchased last spring for $28 million, Successful Meetings said.
“They want the excitement of Las Vegas?” Wynn said in an interview with the Globe. “We can give that.”
Wynn is expected to begin construction on its Everett resort as early as June, with a projected opening of late 2017.
One thing Wynn stressed in the redesign, apparently, is that the casino be completely separate from the non-casino areas. He went so far as to say he wanted it to be a place to “take the children on Sunday, ” the Everett Independent said.
More important than anything is that the redesign has pushed up the total investment in Everett from $1.6 billion to $1.75 billion. That includes upping the numbers of rooms from 500 to 630 – with 150 luxury suites, the report said.
The complete renderings and detailed plans for the Everett casino project will be revealed at a meeting of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission in January – perhaps by Wynn himself, the Independent said.