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(Publisher’s Note: This story is in the memory of Bill Walton, a bicyclist who added joy and a zest to living to every person who was lucky enough to have met Bill.)
By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
The truth about the Tour de Arenas in Las Vegas is that you can ride a bicycle down the entire length of Las Vegas Boulevard in metro Vegas and create your own bike circuit of sports venues.
My Tour de Vegas Arenas Sunday morning was the central section of a 50-mile route I created from my home in the Blue Diamond area where bicycling — on the dirt trails and on State Route 159/Red Rock Loop — is a way of life.
I pedal this 50-miler only from 5:30-9:30AM when traffic is light. And usually only on Sundays.
The first 23 of the 50 miles are on Blue Diamond Road and Las Vegas Boulevard, where people operating cars and pickup trucks routinely run red lights, especially making right turns at red lights without coming to a full stop. Speeding, reckless and lawless motorists are common in metro Las Vegas and the math of so many dangerous drivers and so many miles bicycled on roads means I will eventually be hit by a driver like I was in September 2022 when I was bicycling through an intersection at Hacienda Avenue and Decatur Boulevard and was broadsided by a right-turning motorist who failed to come to a complete stop at her red light.
With the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium and T-Mobile Arena up and running for years now, my bicycle ride took me past the proposed Tim Leiweke/Oak View Group arena at Blue Diamond Road and Las Vegas Boulevard at MILE 13 three miles south of Mandalay Bay; the planned A’s stadium at the former Tropicana hotel-casino site at Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue at MILE 17 and a proposed arena by developer LVXP at the old Jackie Robinson arena/Wet ‘N’ Wild water park site at Las Vegas Boulevard at MILE 20 next to the Fontainebleau hotel-casino near the Sahara Avenue intersection.
Here’s what I saw. At the Leiweke arena site, there was nothing going on except a row of political signs at the Las Vegas Blvd/Blue Diamond corner and along Las Vegas Blvd. Leiweke, a veteran arena builder who redeveloped the NHL Seattle Kraken arena in downtown Seattle, has former Raiders team president Marc Badain on his staff for this arena and hotel/casino project to develop this arena and hotel-casino project.
Leiweke triggered a chorus of claps when he told an economic development group last year that his multi-billion-dollar project will not ask for public money. Here’s a look at the site:
About four miles to the north on Las Vegas Boulevard after I biked past the airport and the Las Vegas Welcome sign, I made a quick stop at the Tropicana hotel-casino site. The hotel closed April 2. It was newsworthy to see the work already done on getting rid of the hotel to make way for the A’s stadium at the 35-acre site at Las Vegas Blvd. and Tropicana Ave.
LVSportsBiz.com just did a story update on the planned A’s stadium, which is a proposed $1.5 billion domed stadium of 33,000 seats that is supposed to open in 2028. A’s owner John Fisher is receiver $380 million in government assistance to help pay for the $1.5 billion stadium.
Then it was time to bike the heart of the Strip, from Tropicana Avenue to Sands Avenue. Traffic was sparse as I assumed the proper position in the middle of the traffic lane and waved the few motorists around me to pass me in the next lane over. It was uneventful — just the way I like it when bicycling the Strip.
I eventually reached the proposed LVXP arena site where developer James Frasure has hired AECOM to design the proposed NBA arena. AECOM designed the NBA Las Angeles Clippers’ Intuit Dome near the NFL Los Angeles Rams’ SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California in metro LA.
The newsworthy part of this site is that there’s actual signs of activity after Las Vegas businessman Jackie Robinson hardly made any progress on the site after his arena groundbreaking more than nine years ago. The Clark County Commission voted in November to deny Robinson an extension to keep the proposed All Net Arena project going. There were just no signs of progress at the site.
That’s different from what’s going on now as LVSportsBiz.com saw equipment, construction gear and new fencing at the site after LVXP announced its arena project in late April.
Take a look:
Both Leiweke and AECOM have track records of building arenas, but no plans have been submitted to Clark County government and there are no groundbreaking dates.
The NBA is likely to expand from 30 to 32 teams in a few years and several investors like LeBron James have talked about wanting to own an NBA team in Las Vegas. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver likes to say that the Las Vegas NBA Summer League is the Association’s 31st franchise and don’t forget the NBA’s in-season tournament’s semifinals and finals were held last year at T-Mobile Arena.
I bicycled down the Strip to Main Street in Las Vegas and then into downtown Las Vegas. I passed the new Atomic Golf next to The Strat which looks a lot like Topgolf.
Then I pedaled over to Alta Boulevard for the two-wheel haul back up to Summerlin. As I bicycled and gained elevation on Alta, I was literally biking through the upward economic class rungs of Las Vegas. Then it was a mile jaunt on the 215 trail to Charleston Boulevard before I followed State Road 159 through Red Rock Canyon.
And it’s back home after a stop at the Red Rock visitors center, where nobody knows when a trail that has been discussed for more than two decades will ever be built from Summerlin to the Red Rock scenic drive entrance.
But there is no shortage of sports venue proposals and they are just a bike ride away.
RIP Bill