One of China’s largest construction has been selected to build the Dream Tower integrated resort in South Korea’s Jeju Island.
Early this week, Lotte Tour Development Co Ltd and Greenland Group, a Chinese real estate company, announced that they have tapped China State Construction Engineering Corp (CSCEC) as its main builder, local newspaper Korea JoongAng Daily reported.
According to the report, Lotte Tour—independent from one of South Korea’s largest conglomerate Lotte Group—and Greenland Group are planning to invest a total of KRW700 billion (US$606.6 million) in the project.
Construction on the 38-story integrated resort is scheduled to begin in May, and is expected to be completed by March 2019. The Dream Tower, which will sit on 302,777-square meters of land, is designed to have a total of 1,626 hotel rooms, shopping malls, and a foreigners-only casino, which will have 200 gaming tables and 400 slot machines.
The Dream Tower will be Jeju’s tallest building, according to Lotte Tour.
“We will let as many companies as possible in Jeju Island take advantage of moving in to the building,” Greenland Group CEO Hwang Min-gang told the news outlet. “We expect the project will help revitalize the local economy.”
There are at least 17 casinos currently operating in South Korea, but only one of them—Kangwon Land—is open to local players. Dream Tower and Genting Singapore’s Resorts World Jeju have yet to receive their casino licenses from the government of Korea. The island of Jeju, however, is excluded in the Integrated Resort RFP process ran by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism because the island is considered a self-governing province and is able to run its own casino-related development program.
The island has eight small casinos that brought in about $200 million in gross gaming revenue in 2014, but Union Gaming analyst Grant Govertsen believes the numbers could go higher when the “high quality” resorts open their doors.
Dream Tower is expected to open in the second half of 2018, right behind Resorts World Jeju, whose first phase is set to open in 2017.
