Golden Knights’ Ice Center In Downtown Henderson Scheduled To Be Completed In September
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
LVSportsBiz.com photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
From the start, Vegas Golden Knights owner Bill Foley talked about turning the Golden Knights logo into a global brand.
But first, he’s cementing the VGK presence all over the Las Vegas market, including the city of Henderson where LVSportsBiz.com Friday afternoon got a peak at the new Lifeguard Arena two-rink community ice facility that is next-door to Henderson City Hall and plaza.
The 44-week, $25 million, 120-square-foot construction project will also be the home base of the Henderson Silver Knights, the VGK’s new American Hockey League team that will make shuttling players between the big club and the Triple A affiliate nothing more than a highway drive down the 215 beltway.
Tour guides Darren Gillett and Michael Petersen, principals of Gillett Construction, which has done ice rink construction work at T-Mobile Arena and other ice facilities in Las Vegas, were friendly guides around the site. It’s scheduled to be completed Sept. 22.
The city of Henderson committed $10.75 million to the two-rink ice facility being built by the Golden Knights — and then approved another $3.2 million for changes needed to accommodate the Silver Knights team.
The facility is very similar to the Golden Knights’ home base, City National Arena, in Downtown Summerlin. The two-rink Summerlin team headquarters and community center is 20,000 square feet bigger and cost about $11 million more. The City National Arena was 100 percent privately built by Foley, in contrast to the Lifeguard Arena project, which is getting nearly $14 million from the city of Henderson.
McKenzie River pizza, the restaurant chain owned by Foley, will be in Lifeguard Arena just like it is at City National Arena. The restaurant location in the facility will be different as McKenzie River pizza will run along the front of the Lifeguard Arena building on the second floor facing both Water Street with glass views of the two ice rinks.
Lifeguard Arena will also have community and city meeting space down the middle of the structure also on the second floor. Lifeguard Arena will front Water Street in Henderson. Lifeguard is a paper goods and janitorial supply company that bought the naming rights to the community ice center.
We chatted with Gillett about the building.
The Golden Knights are also partnering with the city of a Henderson on an $84 million arena project to convert the Henderson Pavilion into a 6,000 American Hockey league arena off Green Valley Parkway near The District shopping and business area. The city and VGK would bring $42 million to the table for the Silver Knights arena project, where the Silver Knights would play its AHL home games. A group is trying to force a public vote to ask city residents whether public dollars should be used in the Henderson Events Center project.
The Lifeguard Arena project is about 15 minutes by car and seven miles from the Henderson Events Center arena project at the pavilion site.
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