Raiders Stadium Architect Also Designing Owner Davis’ New House in Summerlin

By ALAN SNEL

LVSportsBiz.com

 

Raiders owner Mark Davis has a reputation for being a down-to-earth, fun-loving guy with his famed bowl haircut who sits courtside at Las Vegas Aces WNBA games. (He attends Vegas Golden Knights games, too.) Stylistically, he’s a different dude than the NFL billionaire owners like Jerry Jones (Cowboys), Arthur Blank (Falcons), Robert Kraft (Patriots) or Stan Kroenke (Rams).

 

But Davis is going upscale for his future Las Vegas house as the Raiders owner has hired the same architect who designed the Raiders’ $1.8 billion stadium to also design his house in a swanky, luxury Summerlin neighborhood of multi-million-dollar houses where fellow major league team owner, VGK head Bill Foley, also lives.

 

Kansas City-based Manica Architecture, a sports and entertainment design firm that designed the Raiders’ sleek-looking domed stadium that will house 65,000 fans, will also draft the plans for Davis’ new house in Summerlin, several sources have told LVSportsBiz.com. Davis wanted the Raiders stadium’s architecture to mimic that of a sleek car — and his Summerlin house might just have a similar sleek look.

 

Summerlin’s exclusive Summit golf course community bills itself on its website as a “luxury gated golf community located on 555 acres of scenic, secluded land within Summerlin, Las Vegas’ premier master planned community. The Summit is just 9 miles from the Las Vegas strip and is surrounded by world-class lifestyle and entertainment opportunities.” It’s a section of Summerlin known for being the home to Las Vegas’ big hitters and influencers.

 

Summerlin has also become a magnet for Las Vegas’ major league sports community, as Golden Knights owner Foley, VGK President Kerry Bubolz and many Golden Knights players live in the west valley suburban community being developed by Texas-based Howard Hughes Corporation near scenic Red Rock Canyon. Howard Hughes is also building a $150 million Triple A baseball park for the newly-rebranded Las Vegas Aviators in its Downtown Summerlin. The minor league ballyard, which opens in April, is literally next-door to the Golden Knights’ training center, also known as City National Arena.

 

Keep in mind the Raiders just held a groundbreaking for its $75 million headquarters in Henderson near the Henderson Executive Airport. The Raiders new HQ and practice center will have 250 employees at the Henderson site not too far from St. Rose Parkway, leading Raiders president Marc Badain to observe, “With our practice facility location I don’t know how many of our folks will choose Summerlin.  Most are finding homes in Henderson.”

 

LVSportsBiz.com reached Manica Architecture’s David Manica Thursday but he said he is not allowed to discuss the design of Davis’ house under a confidentiality agreement. You can see Manica’s stadium design work on the team’s own stadium construction video series called, “From The Ground Up.”  It’s a well-crafted, behind-the-scenes look at the stadium design and construction — and more candid than you would expect for a team-produced video series. The third installment of  From the Ground Up was recently posted on the Raiders website..

 

Today’s stadium board meeting in Las Vegas had a light agenda and was adjourned after only an hour. Don Webb, chief operating officer for the Raiders stadium building efforts, said the stadium is a third built and recently passed one million work hours at the site (not counting all the work hours off site such as design and fabrication.)

 

About $843 million of stadium work has been awarded, with $159 million committed to small business firms. The Raiders said 66 different small business firms have been awarded work on the project, including 30 with multiple contracts. The team said 72 percent of all firms awarded work on the stadium project are Nevada based. Here’s a video look at the stadium under construction via a Raiders drone:

 

On the workforce diversity front where the goal is 38 percent minority and female, the workforce participation is 69 percent minority/female and two percent veteran. There were many concerns and comments expressed at the start of the stadium board process in 2017 about the stadium community benefits plan, but stadium board members these days have no problems with the benefits plan and how it has been executed. In fact after today’s stadium board meeting, there was a routine and short stadium community benefits plan oversight committee meeting held with no comments from the public.

 

The hotel room tax that was approved by the Nevada Legislature has generated $85,992,923 from March 2017 to November 2018, which is less than 1 percent more than what was budgeted for the same time period. The post-Oct 1 effect of less than expected room tax revenues was reversed in November 2018 when $3,855,355 was collected that month, up 8.5 percent over the $3,552,379 collected in November 2017.

 

The room tax is being collected so that Southern Nevada can give a $750 million public subsidy to the Raiders for the stadium, which is expected to open in July 2020. Where will the Raiders play in 2019? That’s still unknown as of now.

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