Vol. 4, No. 3, March 2007
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MGM Has Designs on AC
MGM Mirage last month announced that it had allocated $20 million to design a mega-resort it may build on 71 acres of land it owns adjacent to the Borgata Casino Resort and Spa in the Marina district.
MGM Mirage Chairman and CEO Terry Lanni says the focus will be on this land, and not the much smaller acreage it owns adjacent to Trump Marina.
“We're going to develop this project on our own as a wholly owned entity, and we have been given approval by our board to move ahead with preliminary work,” he says. MGM is a 50 percent, non-operating partner in Borgata.
Other company executives stress that the announcement is not a guarantee that the construction will actually commence, and that the size and cost of the project have not yet been determined. But it is likely the project will be modeled after the $7 billion CityCenter currently under construction on the Las Vegas Strip. CityCenter includes non-gaming hotels, a casino, retail, restaurants, meeting space and condominiums.
Also last month, the company won a lawsuit that challenged its ownership of the 14 acres next to Trump Marina. Reports that MGM Mirage was considering a joint venture on that site with Connecticut’s Mashantucket Pequot tribe, owner of Foxwoods Casino Resort, were highly exaggerated, according to the tribe.
“We have absolutely no plans to put a casino on that site or anywhere else in Atlantic City,” said tribal spokesman Bruce MacDonald.
