In a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last week MelcoLot Ltd, a subsidiary of Lawrence Ho’s Melco International Development Ltd announced that they are no longer seeking an agreement to build a casino in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. The announcement comes after Sheikh Nahayan bin Mabarak Al Nahayan’s Dhabi Group, who controls the site of the proposed casino project, failed to come to terms with Melco on a lease agreement.

“Although every effort has been made to negotiate with Dhabi on the lease terms, the parties are unable to reach an agreement on terms satisfactory to MelcoLot”, the company said in their Wednesday filing.

One of the investors in the vehicle being used for the project was Taiwanese Firich Enterprises, a partner in Ho’s Tigre de Cristal casino resort near Vladivostok, Russia which opened in the Primorye Integrated Entertainment Zone late last year. The filing noted that, ‘the Melco Group will continue to explore with Firich appropriate opportunities for future commercial co-operation’, the company said.

Previous World Casino News research placed the development in a new Millennium Biltmore, a 7 star presidential & VIP  hotel the Dhabi Group is building on Tabukashvili St next to Radisson Blu Iveria Hotel behind the “Imeli building” a Marriott hotel at 29 Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi. The hotel is reportedly scheduled to open in July, moved from January 2016, at a cost of $140 million. There is only one other hotel in the world under the brand, the Millennium Biltmore Hotel Los Angeles.

Georgia declared independence from Russia in 1991. The casino was meant to attract visitors from the Black Sea area, which sees a great number of visitors from Russia and elsewhere with port cities like Batumi experiencing a Renaissance of sorts with increased development and a focus on tourism.