By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
In these conoravirus pandemic times when sports venues and public buildings are doubling as COVID-19 service centers, the city of Las Vegas has been asked to hold the Cashman Center’s various buildings in reserve for hospital overflow in the event the community needs it.
“We expect the facility to be professionally evaluated next week for suitability,” city spokesman Jace Radke said Wednesday.
The number of people who are infected with COVID-19 is increasing nationwide each day , and health systems across the country are bracing for more and more patients.
In Nevada, there were 1,279 coronavirus cases and 31 deaths caused by the virus as of Wednesday. Clark County has 961 of the state’s cases and 28 of the 31 deaths. Gov. Steve Sisolak also announced Wednesday a stay at home directive.
The Cashman Center is off Las Vegas Boulevard in downtown, with Nevada state offices across the street on one side of the center’s site. Cashman Center includes open exhibitor space, an auditorium that is used sometimes by downtown-based Zappos and Cashman Field, the former Las Vegas 51s minor league baseball team that is now home to the Las Vegas Lights FC soccer team of the United Soccer League.
The city and Clark County also plan to have the Cashman Center site be home a 350-bed isolation and quarantine facility for homeless people. It’s scheduled to open Monday. Meanwhile, the city has had homeless people sleep overnight on pavement at the Cashman Center’s upper parking lot off Las Vegas Boulevard.
But that’s coming to an end. In a city of Las Vegas media release Wednesday, the temporary homeless space at the parking lot that started March 28 will suspend operations Thursday morning at 6 a.m. The shelter was opened on an emergency basis when the Catholic Charities shelter closed last week. Catholic Charities has now reopened, offering shelter for the homeless along with the Courtyard Homeless Resource Center and other providers, the release said.
During its first four nights of operation, the temporary open-air shelter at Cashman was used by 591 homeless individuals, and provided a safe alternative to sleeping on the street.
The Lights, which have a lease agreement with the city to play at Cashman, supports any initiative the city wants to take in using the stadium for COVID-19 services, Lights owner Brett Lashbrook said Wednesday.
The soccer team’s season is suspended in the United Soccer League and it’s unknown when the USL and Major League Soccer will kick-start games again.
In other coronavirus news:
- Wimbledon, which was set for June 29-July 12, has been cancelled.
- Sisolak submitted a request to President Donald Trump for a disaster declaration
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