Steve Wynn told financial analysts on Tuesday that he has finished the redesign of his proposed casino hotel in Everett and said the property will be unlike any other in the industry.
The Las Vegas casino mogul did not provide any details on the new design, but said it would be presented to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission soon. He indicated the design would be different from other Wynn properties in Las Vegas and China as well as any casino hotel in the world.
Wynn called the new hotel design “dramatically different,” a product “that has never been done, never been seen before in any city or in any country, including our own buildings. I don’t think in my 40-odd years I’ve ever been this excited about a project.”
During the awarding of the Greater Boston casino license, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission urged Wynn to take another stab at designing the outside of the hotel, which featured reflective bronze glass with white border. One commissioner called the original design “a brooding presence.”
Wynn initially resisted the Gaming Commission’s suggestion, but then reversed course and promised to redesign the hotel. He presented early drawings to some of the commissioners recently and the reaction was reportedly favorable.
Wynn made his comments on Tuesday to analysts during a conference call following the release of third quarter results for Wynn Resorts. Net revenues were down slightly, falling from $1.39 billion for the three-month period in 2013 to $1.37 billion for the same period this year. Operating earnings were up 5.3 percent to $458.8 million. The company announced a 20 percent increase in its quarterly cash dividend to $1.50 per share and an additional cash dividend of $1 per share.
Wynn recently donated $1 million to the group fighting against a ballot question that would repeal the state’s gaming law and dash his bid to build a casino in Massachusetts. He told the analysts that he recently called former Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank to congratulate him on his Oct. 25 Boston Globe op-ed entitled “The liberal case for casinos.”
In the op-ed, Frank appeared to argue against the casino ballot question by noting that liberals normally push for laws and regulations protecting people from being harmed by others but not from being harmed by actions they take themselves. Frank wrote that he believes individuals should have the freedom to decide how they spend their money. “Gambling is to liberals what pornography is to many conservatives: They think it is tacky, and that society would be better without it,” Frank wrote.
