The Encore tower will be marketed as a standalone casino resort.
Las Vegas, A few months after announcing details for a second hotel tower at Wynn Las Vegas, Steve Wynn’s company has already elevated the project into a freestanding resort, committing more money to a bigger project than originally planned. 
Wynn Las Vegas, scheduled to open April 28, will cost us$ 2.7 billion.
Wynn Resorts Ltd. disclosed in the company’s annual report last Tuesday that the tower, called Encore at Wynn Las Vegas, is now expected to cost up to $1.4 billion and be marketed as a standalone casino resort.
Initially conceived as a us$ 900 million addition to Wynn Las Vegas with 1,500 rooms, Encore will now feature 2,000 hotel suites with separate living rooms and bedrooms in each unit. The resort also will feature "significant" additional casino, convention and meeting space as well as new restaurants, entertainment venues, a spa and salon, swimming pools and retail space, the report said. Encore will open in the first half of 2008 instead of the previously stated 2007 opening.
"Encore will be integrated with Wynn Las Vegas through its public space," the company said. The scope and design of the project have not been finalized and remain subject to approval by the company’s board of directors.
Wynn Las Vegas, scheduled to open April 28, will cost us$ 2.7 billion, including us$ 1.6 billion in design and construction costs and us$ 1.1 billion in development costs such as pre-opening expenses, land acquisition costs, furniture and casino equipment, it said.
In the company’s annual report, Wynn Resorts - which has not yet opened any of its properties - reported a net loss of us$ 127.7 million in the fourth quarter of last year compared with us$ 12.4 million in the same quarter a year earlier. The widening loss is related to increased development costs, pre-opening costs and a us$ 97.2 million loss on the early retirement of debt. The company reported a us$ 205.6 million loss in 2004 compared with a us$ 48.9 million loss in 2003.
