Las Vegas gambling magnate Steve Wynn hopes to build one of his planned Macau casinos on a beachfront reclamation site on Taipa Island, which had been expected to become a marine park.
A lawyer acting for Mr Wynn in Macau, Correia da Silva, said he wanted to buy the site, owned by a private company, but no agreement had been reached.
'We have to negotiate to see what the current owners want,' he said, without naming the company that owns the land.
'It's a beautiful location. It's facing Macau. It's great.' He said the site, opposite the Hyatt Regency hotel, was 'huge', although he could not recall the exact dimensions.
A Hyatt spokeswoman said the harbour views of some of the hotel's rooms could be marred if a tall building was built on the site.
She said construction of the planned 16-hectare Macau Marine Park - launched with great fanfare on the site in 1997 - had stopped.