Las Vegas Construction Forges Ahead, While Strip Is Barren, Silent Amid Coronavirus Pandemic; UFC Prez Dana White Says He Has Lined Up Venue To Host UFC 249 April 18
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
In this age of isolation, hand washing, coronavirus spreading and most of America and Las Vegas shutting down, construction moves forward in metro Las Vegas.
Case in point: Construction workers Tuesday worked on the “Allegiant Stadium” letters on the Raiders stadium’s west side, poured concrete on the north side of the property and forged ahead with various tasks at the venue’s 62.5-acre site on the west side of Interstate 15, a mere 15-minute walk from a barren and silent Strip.
Construction ranged from work on the Circa hotel-casino in downtown Las Vegas and a parking lot across the street from the Smith Center for the Performing Arts to road work near Circus Circus along Las Vegas Boulevard to the Raiders stadium site.
Here’s not ideal social distancing at the Raiders stadium as workers took a break for lunch. Medical and health experts are urging Americans to wash their hands frequently, don’t touch your faces and limit social groups. Las Vegas and Nevada are shut down with a statewide “stay at home” urging, including an unprecedented hotel-casino and Strip shutdown.
There are 278 coronavirus cases in Nevada — a small fraction of the number of confirmed cases in the U.S. and in hot spots like New York City. Gov. Steve Sisolak Tuesday banned groups of 10 people or more people to stem the COVID-19 spread, with two more people dying from the respiratory ailment in Clark County today. UNLV Medicine is also conducting curbside drive-through tests for people meeting CDC guidelines for symptoms, with results coming back in four to seven days. It’s by appointment only.
Most non-essential businesses have closed in Nevada. But there are a few businesses that have been trying to stay open under the new rules. Police are enforcing the required non-essential business shutdowns.
Here’s a look at the Circa construction site in downtown.
Meanwhile, there was light traffic on the Strip, where there were some runners jogging along the sidewalks and Metro Police stationed near main intersections.
At the Flamingo-Las Vegas Boulevard intersection, there were hardly any cars — a stunning sight when you consider this is the busiest intersection in Las Vegas.
Over at T-Mobile Arena, there was not a single soul at the plaza.
The Bellagio was silent.
Over at T-Mobile Arena, LVSportsBiz.com saw a UPS truck making a delivery.
Besides police on patrol, these were the only other workers LVSportsBiz.com saw along the Strip.
In downtown Las Vegas, the Fremont Experience was inaccessible.
Today’s LVSportsBiz.com tour and survey of the Raiders stadium site, the Strip and downtown came on the day of the International Olympic Committee and Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee joint statement that the Summer Games scheduled from July 24-Aug. 9 in Japan will be postponed. Here’s the meat of the statement:
The unprecedented and unpredictable spread of the outbreak has seen the situation in the rest of the world deteriorating. Yesterday, the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that the COVID-19 pandemic is “accelerating”. There are more than 375,000 cases now recorded worldwide and in nearly every country, and their number is growing by the hour.
In the present circumstances and based on the information provided by the WHO today, the IOC President and the Prime Minister of Japan have concluded that the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in Tokyo must be rescheduled to a date beyond 2020 but not later than summer 2021, to safeguard the health of the athletes, everybody involved in the Olympic Games and the international community.
Here’s the complete Olympic statement.
The last day of the Olympics for 2020 was scheduled for Aug. 9, which is three days after the NFL preseason is scheduled to kick off with the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio. If the Olympics are postponed, the NFL must be taking a very close look at the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. on the upcoming season.
UFC President Dana White also told LVSportsBiz.com that he has found a venue to host UFC 249 scheduled for April 18 — one of the few sports events in April that have not been suspended or canceled. But White said he’s not ready to announce a location. The big UFC 249 headliner:
Meanwhile, the Golden Knights have a name and logo for their American Hockey League Triple-A team that’s slated for Henderson and it’s all systems go for the 2020-21 season that will have the AHL team play at The Orleans Arena while a 6,000-seat minor league arena is built in Henderson. A separate VGK community ice center is being built in Henderson and that’s where the AHL team will practice. Here’s a pic of that VGK ice center that will be similar to the team’s training center in Summerlin.
Follow LVSportsBiz.com on Twitter and Instagram. Like LVSportsBiz.com on Facebook.
