By Alan Snel
LVSportsBiz.com
The Raiders are making $40 million worth of budget changes at their Las Vegas stadium for a variety of revenue-generating enhancements such as adding 20 suites and a 26,000-square-foot end zone club level (instead of bunker suites), the team’s stadium pointman told the public stadium board Thursday.
Stadium construction COO Don Webb said it made sense to make changes now because the contractors and workers are on site for an “economies of scale” benefit to build the improvements. Webb explained stadium money makers such as personal seat licenses and club tickets are going at a “robust pace.”
Here’s a summary of the budget changes.
Here’s a visual update of the stadium construction site.
Webb also said a transportation plan is being finalized for June and that the Raiders are working with MGM Resorts International and Clark County to have 20,000-25,000 pedestrians walk from the Strip on Hacienda Avenue across Interstate 15 to reach the stadium’s 62.5-acre site on the west side of the interstate.
The Raiders are also acquiring local properties for parking space and hope to work with local businesses in a “parking co-op” arrangement to help with the parking shortage in the stadium plan.
Meanwhile, Clark County is working on a stadium district proposal and a transportation study, including bus service issues. The county is giving ongoing presentations on this district and transportation concept, though the county representative addressing the stadium did not specify the exact times and dates of the presentations.
RTC transportation agency chief Tina Quigley also stepped up to talk with the stadium board, offering three different bus plans: increase current bus service around the Raiders stadium site, work with the Raiders on express bus service from park-and-ride sites like the VGK bus service to nearby T-Mobile Arena; and new technology for evolving transit to develop on-demand point-to-point 11-passenger vans to serve the stadium.
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The Raiders have gone through nearly 44 percent of the $1.84 Raiders stadium project budget as of April 30, according to the project status report for today’s stadium board meeting.
Let’s take a closer look at the spending of $805.5 million so far — the public stadium authority has contributed $278.7 million in public dollars (the public is giving $750 million); the Raiders’ personal seat licenses account for $284.2 million (the Raiders project $290 million in personal seat license revenue); and the Raiders’ credit makes up the remaining $242.5 million (the Raiders have taken out a $600 million loan from Bank of America after Las Vegas billionaire/casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson dropped out the deal.) Plus, the Raiders have spent $28.9 million of an NFL $200 million loan on the stadium construction.
Here’s the info from the status report.
A lot of has been reported on the stadium’s steel and roof truss work and here’s a Raiders video on the project that offers more details on the massive trusses.
How’s the room tax revenue that is being collected to help pay off the public stadium bonds? Let’s take a look. For the last month that was reported in March, room tax revenues of nearly $4.4 million were down 5.7 percent compared to the revenues collected a year earlier in March 2018. (Note: Preliminary totals for March 2019 did not include Henderson or North Las Vegas.)
The stadium project has 1,200 workers on the construction site and the contractor has operations running six days a week. The public stadium authority, the panel of local business leaders representing the public’s interests, relies on its construction representative, Grand Canyon Development Partners, to offer an independent assessment of how the construction is going. Here’s Grand Canyon’s perspectives for this month’s report.
There have also been some change orders for the stadium project. Let’s take a look.
The domed, 65,000-seat stadium on 62.5 acres on the west side of I-15 across from Mandalay Bay is scheduled to be ready July 31, 2020.
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