Paul Steelman of Steelman Partners in Hong Kong (ANDREW ROSS/AFP/Getty Images)
Three integrated resorts with a combined price tag approaching $5 billion in Entertainment City by Manila Bay have set new standards for the Philippine casino market, if not the region. Yet these three oases of indulgence each stand in splendid isolation. The 120-hectare district surrounding them is a vast, pedestrian unfriendly wasteland, with tracts of empty land between them that may take decades to be filled with buildings and people. Renowned resort designer Paul Steelman, who first made his mark in Asia with Sands Macao, says Entertainment City casino owners have missed the hidden-in-plain-sight secret of Las Vegas, and they’re not the only ones.
Before any IR dealt a card, his Steelman Partners presented a master plan “to make Entertainment City the Las Vegas of Asia.” The plan envisioned connecting three of the four resorts closest to the bay via a large promenade that, according to Steelman, could become Manila’s equivalent of the Vegas Strip, and link them to Mall of Asia and its indoor area, just to the north, visited by 200,000 people a day and owned by the Philippines’ richest man Henry Sy and family, partners in City of Dreams Manila, operated by Lawrence Ho’s Melco Resorts.
“Now that three of the four master planned casinos are operating, it is time to for the group to reconsider formal adopting the master plan, or a corrected version,” Steelman, who designed the initial phase of billionaire Enrique Razon’s Solaire, the first Entertainment City property, says. “The connection and integration together of all the parts of the offering is exactly what Manila needs to compete on a world-class basis.”
He recommends against “the inward approach” adopted by his hometown, Atlantic City, where Steelman cut his casino design teeth on the likes of Steve Wynn’s Golden Nugget. “The casinos there believe that they marketed and paid to get these customers, so now do everything possible to keep them in their building.” He contends that approach helped decimate Atlantic City, which in its mid-1980s to late-1990s heyday routinely beat Las Vegas’ gaming revenue. By contrast, “You’ll very rarely see an advertisement on TV for the Bellagio but you will see one for Las Vegas.”
Architect Paul Steelman, at the November opening of NagaWorld’s Naga2 in Phnom Penh, his latest casino creation in Asia. (Credit: Muhammad Cohen)Muhammad Cohen
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Steelman considers Las Vegas, his current base, the “gold standard” for entertainment districts with the Strip and Downtown Las Vegas and has had a hand in several resorts there including Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands flagship Venetian and Genting’s upcoming Resorts World Las Vegas. Yet other destinations haven’t gotten the Vegas message. “City planning has never been a strong driver in casino development,” he says. “It always amazes me that some casino owners and operators do not see that the sum of all parts is much greater than any of the pieces.”
In our recent interview, Steelman advises that Japan, moving toward casino legalization, copy what works. “What Japan really needs to compete with Macau is Las Vegas,” with Japanese characteristics.
In Japan presentations, the Steelman Partners CEO says, “We’ve shown IRs being the anchors like the old department stores used to be and then connected by long boulevards filled with entertainment, and those long boulevards being populated by fantastically designed Japanese buildings that are just to die for, with Japanese hoteliers and Japanese restaurants and all of the great things that Japan offers.”
“Japan has an incredible culture, an incredible architecture, incredible art, incredible style… the world needs to see Japan in a fun sort of way, and it will be fun, no doubt about it.”
Imagine a Japanese version of Fremont Street in Downtown Las Vegas, with a giant overhead projection screen using Japanese technology and design, casino architect Paul Steelman suggests. (Shutterstock)
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“I’d hate to see someone say they were going to build Venice there. That would be stupid to me. People will go to this if it’s truly Japanese and truly unique, and that is not a bunch of high rise glass buildings.”
Local ingenuity will be vital, Steelman says, utilizing “Japanese entrepreneurs… the ones that run the 100 room hotel, that designed it. The ones that run the fantastic restaurant on the park that is integrated into the landscape. What we proposed in several of our master plans is to integrate those small businesses in a way that they can demonstrate themselves and create the overall tourism attraction. A Japanese restaurant in a great Japanese hotel on a great technical walk that is something like Downtown Las Vegas.”
The “technical” centerpiece of Downtown Las Vegas is Fremont Street Experience featuring free light shows nightly on the world’s largest projection screen, measuring more than 12,500 square meters, suspended 27 meters in the air with more the 12.5 million LED lights, all above a five-block pedestrian mall. Steelman gushes at the thought of a Japanese version.
“What else is Japan better at?” he asks. “Vision and television and things of this nature. You could improve upon Fremont Street in Japan. That’s what I believe, and for this [gaming district] to be successful on a global scale, it has to be done by a bunch of Japanese guys.” With the integrated resort truly integrated into the district, making the whole greater than its parts.