The former Westfield and Lend Lease executive has signed deals with more than 400 up-market retailers who will lease over 80,000 square metres of shops in the $2.3 billion Venetian China apartment hotel/casino and the nearby Four Seasons mall. In total, Sylvester, who joined the Las Vegas Sands group in Hong Kong just over a year ago, has the job of signing up the equivalent of two giant Westfield shopping centres of retail space in some $8 billion of hotel and casino developments planned by the company for Macau. 350 Grand Canal Shoppes will line three faux Venice canals in the Venetian casino/hotel complex set to open in mid-2007.
The next goal has been an even more upmarket shopping mall in the Four Seasons hotel complex due to open in the second half of the year next to the Venetian. In total, the Sands group is looking at some 3 million square feet of shopping malls over seven different lots in Macau to be gradually opened over the next three to four years.
The developments to be undertaken by the Las Vegas Sands group will line what is known as the Cotai strip, a strip of reclaimed land between two islands in Macau, which will also be the site of the City of Dreams, the $1.5 billion hotel/casino development to be built by James Packer's Publishing and Broadcasting and his Hong Kong partner Melco.
Sylvester says the company's goal in Macau is to follow its Las Vegas model, where more than half the revenue comes from non-gaming sources such as retailing, conventions, hotels and entertainment. There will be enough critical mass of malls and a broad array of tenants to give people a reason to go to Macau for the shopping alone, without relying on the other elements. Some people will come just to see these malls.
The Sands group is hoping to attract the millions of affluent people across the border in mainland China who are already starting to come to Hong Kong to shop and to Macau for gambling. They are a great customer base (the mainland Chinese) as Macau doesn't have a luxury goods tax like China.