“Full-scale construction” for the expansion of the Marina Bay Sands (MBS) casino resort in Singapore is expected to “begin by July 2025, with targeted completion by July 2029,” says the promoter, Marina Bay Sands Pte Ltd, in a Friday press release.

In January the company received approval from the city-state’s authorities to develop a fourth tower (pictured left in a rendering), with 153,100 square metres (1.65 million sq feet) of hotel space over 587 rooms.

Marina Bay Sands Pte is a unit of U.S.-based casino developer Las Vegas Sands Corp.

The new hotel tower will also feature 12,185 sq metres of retail space, according to data published by Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority.

The expansion plan also includes a 15,000-seat arena, a sky roof, additional space for meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE), “as well as new food and beverage and nightlife offerings,” stated the company.

The original plan, announced in 2019, mentioned a hotel tower with 1,000 all-suite rooms.

Patrick Dumont, president and chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sands, said in prepared remarks included in Friday’s release that the expansion of Marina Bay Sands would “further enhance the leisure and business tourism appeal of Singapore”.

“It optimises the site’s programming elements and is designed to drive high-value tourism growth to Singapore,” he added.

Mr Dumont also said the new arena would “help attract the highest-calibre global entertainment events and artists,” and the additional convention and exhibition space would “extend the success of Singapore as a leading MICE destination”.

The casino group had committed in 2019 to the city-state’s authorities to invest at least SGD4.5 billion (US$3.3 billion) on expansion of the property. Since then, the company received a number of deadline extensions regarding the start of the property’s expansion. The latest agreement extended the deadline for the group to start construction on the extension to the property to “April 8, 2024”.

The company is currently carrying out a US$750-million revamp of the complex’s Tower 3, as well as the property’s hotel lobby, and the rooftop Sands SkyPark. That is supplementary to the US$1-billion invested in the renovation of Tower 1 and Tower 2 of Marina Bay Sands.

Las Vegas Sands has said it expects to make available to the public the revamped rooms of Tower 3 of Marina Bay Sands by early next year.