Seventeen Weeks Of Las Vegas Grand Prix Prep Work And Dismantling Set To Start In Strip Corridor In Early September
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Shop at Jay’s Market at 190 East Flamingo Road at the Koval Lane intersection east of the Strip.
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
Starting Sept. 2, life changes on Las Vegas Boulevard, Koval Lane, Sands Avenue and Harmon Avenue for 17 weeks in the Strip corridor.
Formula 1 road work to install barriers, fencing and lights means closed lanes and roads based on this Las Vegas Grand Prix prep schedule.
It’s not just installations for the road race set for Nov. 21-23. There is also a lot of dismantling that extends from after the race in the Strip area to Week 17 starting Dec. 23.
The 17-week schedule is much shorter than the nine months of road paving and race prep work that proceeded the inaugural race event in November 23.
Clark County released records showing the traffic management plan. But the county withheld the Las Vegas Grand Prix’s original traffic plan document submitted May 1 and refused to allow the public to see how the county shaped the final traffic plan.
What does a final traffic plan document look like? Here’s the light installation plans.
Las Vegas Paving is in charge of the traffic control, generating millions of dollars from the work for the 3.8-mile, 50-lap race that takes about 90 minutes.
F1 workers say the impact of the race on locals in the Strip corridor is less in Year 2 after the grand prix prep work in 2023 caused traffic jams, lost revenues for businesses and disruptions to commerce. The Las Vegas Grand Prix has also tried to connect more with the Las Vegas market in 2024 by handing out school supplies to kids and free tickets to local race fans.
The race’s economic benefits were a mixed bag in 2023 as the big hotels on the race course reported high than usual revenues for that weekend but many local business owners said they lost millions of dollars because customers faced hardships reaching their businesses because of the race’s track layout and barriers.
The city of Las Vegas said no to F1. In an LVSportsBiz.com exclusive, Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman said Formula 1 looked at downtown roads and the Symphany Park area for a race. But the city, in Goodman’s words, “had no appetite” for the race event.
LVSportsBiz.com has learned that F1 approached Clark County and the LVCVA in the past about a car race, but in past years leadership did not want to hand over the region’s economic lifeblood road — the Strip — to a private race promoter.
But the LVCVA head, Stave Hill, and his friend, Las Vegas consultant Jeremy Aguero, created a narrative that the race would be a moneymaker for Las Vegas. And Clark County commissioners, who seem enamored with supporting major sports events, ate up the hype.
Clark County released a grand prix race event debriefing report March 19, asserting the race was a moneymaker. But it’s hard to understand how the county came up with a net income number when there were so many workers who said they lost hours and even didn’t bother showing up to work because of the race work-created traffic jams.
This is just one page of the debriefing report, a mere example:
You would think Clark County would try and be transparent as possible after the race prep work caused so much disruptions and revenue losses for local businesses. But county officials kept secret the grand prix’s traffic document submitted May 1 until this week.
The light installations plan, for example, says it wants Las Vegas Paving to show how the sidewalk will be be opened for pedestrians after the lighting is installed.
Here’s just one intersection along Las Vegas Boulevard at Harmon Avenue that will be affected by the car race.
This is only one intersection. Many more will be affected by the prep work, meaning closed lanes and roads.
LVSportsBiz.com will be checking the road and traffic situation around the road circuit after prep work starts next month.
