MGM’S $5B Mega-Casino

MGM Mirage announced its plan to raise the bar for casinos in Atlantic City October 10th with its up to $5 billion mega-casino resort, MGM Grand Atlantic City.

The mega-casino, which is set to open in 2012 with groundbreaking next year, rings up at a cost between $4.5 billion and $5 billion – and that’s not including the land value and associated costs.

After being hurt by competition from slot parlors in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New York, Atlantic City’s 11 casinos have invested billions of dollars to bring in more affluent customers looking for entertainment, dining and shopping to go hand-in-hand with their gambling experience.

MGM Grand Atlantic City will contain more than 3,000 rooms and suites in three hotel towers. The largest casino floor in Atlantic City will hold 5,000 slot machines, 200 table games and a large poker room. There’s also a 1,500-seat theatre, restaurants, spa, 500,000 square feet of retail space and a convention center.

"It’s a very exciting project that is another step in Atlantic City’s evolution as a full-scale destination resort, which is critical given the competition we currently face," said Joe Corbo, president of the Casino Association of New Jersey.

The mega-casino will sit on a 72-acre site at Renaissance Pointe that the casino operator owns next to the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa.

Like the model used for the Borgata, which MGM co-owns with Boyd Gaming, MGM plans to build on 60 acres of the site and leave 12 for future development and possibly a residential component.