By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
There are many moving parts to the Raiders building a football stadium with a healthy chunk of public money in Las Vegas.
But the public learned Thursday it won’t be until April when the bonds will be sold to raise the $750 million the public is committed under state law to hand over to the NFL team for the Raiders’ $1.8 billion, domed 65,000-seat stadium in Las Vegas that opens in 2020. The stadium is being built on 62 acres on the west side of Interstate 15 across the highway from Mandalay Bay, bounded by Russell Road and Polaris Avenue.
Team President Marc Badain said the timing of the bonds being sold in April is workable and syncs with the Raiders’ own financing package, too.
There are some other key dates, too. The Nevada Board of Regents will likely vote Jan. 19 on the UNLV-Raiders joint-use deal to allow the UNLV football team to use the Raiders stadium starting in 2020, when the venue is scheduled to open. The UNLV stadium use document had to exist before the stadium board can give the final green light to the stadium, with the stadium board also serving as arbiter if there’s a disagreement between UNLV and the Raiders.
To catch up on the UNLV-Raiders joint use deal, read the LVSportsBiz.com story on the agreement.
There was talk that UNLV would have to pay as much as $250,000 to use the Raiders stadium for a game. But the stadium board chairman Steve Hill said last week the board found the cost for a university football team using a local NFL stadium for a game around the country was $100,000-$175,000.
Monthly room tax revenues for November were down 9.8 percent from a projected $3.73 million as $3,363,667 were collected. After nine months, the total is $37,476,374 — money that will be used to shave down that public commitment of $750 million for the Raiders stadium.
Consultant Jeremy Aguero noted, however, that the hotel room tax revenues should go up about five percent when the room tax money totals are calculated from the cities of Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, for example. Aguero also said the room tax revenues were expected to dip because of the Oct. 1 shooting massacre on the Strip as less tourists and guests visited the Strip in October, November and December as projected before the shooting tragedy.
The $37,5 million collected so far is running seven percent higher than the projected $35 million after nine months. The stadium board plans to sell bonds with the help of Clark County to raise the money committed to the Raiders. More than $1.1 billion will be raised over 30 years in debt service to pay back the $750,000 million the public will be giving to the Raiders for their $1.9 billion stadium project.
On the community benefits plan front, there will be an oversight committee to make sure the Raiders are living up to the minority, woman hiring goals and other job training programs. Eight different chambers and contractor associations have nominated members for that committee.
Ken Evans, a stadium board member who is the Urban Chamber of Commerce president, said he would like to be the chairman of the oversight committee. And local public relations and advertising firm owner Jo Cato, during the public comment period, also recommended Evans for the oversight committee.
But fellow stadium board member Tommy White supported Sean Stewart of the Nevada Contractors Association serving as the oversight committee chairman and didn’t think having a stadium board member also serving as the oversight committee chairman was a good idea. The stadium board tabled naming members to the oversight committee until the February meeting.
Until the Raiders stadium parking situation is known, it’s hard to resolve transportation questions, Aguero said. The Raiders need more than 13,000 parking spaces to serve the stadium because the 62-acre site includes space for about 3,000 spaces.
Badain said there will be another five weeks of excavation blasting at the site to make way for the stadium foundation.
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