COVID-19 and Sports: Cashman Soccer Redevelopment Talks Pushed To September; Development Group Working On Including New Investor For Soccer Stadium Deal In Downtown LV; Tour Of New Isolation/Quarantine Center At Cashman
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
LVSportsBiz.com photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
These are trying times for the Cashman Center and Cashman Field, the soccer stadium and home of the Las Vegas Lights that is part of the longtime downtown multi-building development.
Short-term, next 90 days: A new temporary homeless isolation and quarantine center for homeless people showing COVID-19 symptoms or testing positive for the novel coronavirus is ready to open at 6 p.m. later today. It’s not walk-up medical service. A homeless person must be referred to facility for up to 500 homeless people located in a parking lot at Cashman Center, near Cashman Field off Las Vegas .
Long-term, starting in September likely: Negotiations between a development group that wants to redevelop Cashman Center into an MLS soccer stadium site and the city of Las Vegas will probably re-start in September, Las Vegas City Manager Scott Adams told LVSportsBiz.com after Monday’s tour of the Iso-Q homeless center at Cashman.
“It was worth slowing it (redevelopment negotiations) down to make it right,” Adams said.
Development representative Floyd Kephart of The Renaissance Companies, is working with investors Baupost Group, a money management organization, on a proposal to redevelop a mile-long segment of Las Vegas Boulevard including the Cashman Center site. The proposal’s headliner element is building a 25,000-seat MLS stadium to potentially house a Major League Soccer team. If the city and the development group reach a deal, the Las Vegas Lights would be sold to Baupost, and effort would be made to attain an MLS franchise for the new Cashman soccer stadium.
A new wrinkle in the soccer stadium deal is that Baupost is trying to bring in an unnamed investor who would “add a lot to the project,” Adams said.
Adams’ comments came after the city of Las Vegas gave the media a tour of the Isolation & Quarantine Center Monday morning.
A few weeks ago, the city got bad publicity when images of homeless people sleeping on a Cashman Center parking lot surface in a marked grid made national news.
Now, any homeless people showing signs of the coronavirus or who tested positive will be housed in these temporary structures. LVSportsBiz.com was there for the tour.
How many homeless people will check in tonight to use the Iso-Q center? It’s anyone’s guess. At 6 p.m. the facility opens. Late this afternoon after 4 p.m., city officials and staffers at the facility will get a better handle on the numbers.
The city is working with Clark County on the Iso-Q homeless center. Here’s County Commission Chairwoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick.
Workers were will putting the finishing touches on the facility Monday morning.
The logsitics and staff tent strructures are located in the upper parking lot, which has a view of the Las Vegas Lights’ home field, Cashman Field. Like the rest of the sports industry in the U.S., the Lights don’t know when the games will re-start.
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