Strip Runs By Its Own Rules; Clark County Government Is Mere Rubber Stamp For Sports Venues, Events In Strip Corridor
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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
Technically speaking, the Strip is under the government jurisdiction of Clark County, Nevada.
But when you see how things get done in the Strip corridor, it’s easy to see the hotels and event organizers run the famed street.
The county typically rubber stamps projects and events in the Strip corridor.
Bear witness to the Las Vegas Grand Prix, a 3.8-mile linear event that is set for Year 2 Nov. 21-23. A recent lawsuit filed by two businesses alleging the F1 race crushed their restaurant and casino to the tune of millions of dollars argued Clark County fast-tracked permits and approvals in order for Liberty Media-owned F1 to put on the race in November.
The county allowed a private sports event promoter to take over the region’s economic artery for months on end so that a 90-minute race could be held during the Nov. 16-18, 2023 weekend and so that the most expensive hotels could make more money than normal for that particular weekend.
Clark County showing preferential treatment to the big sports venues and events is hardly new. Clark County approved the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium with only about 2,500 parking spaces when county rules require 16,500 parking spaces for a venue with 62,500 seats.
To reach a Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) board meeting this week, I parked on a quiet side street near Allegiant Stadium, took my bike out of the car and pedaled on the Strip and neighboring roads. It gave me a chance to inspect the Tropicana-A’s stadium site, the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix nerve center at Harmon and Koval and the Sphere along Sands Avenue.
The Sphere has seating capacity of 18,600, but it was clear by looking at the limited parking at the site that there were only about a few hundred car spaces. How did the Sphere get away with providing so little venue parking?
Well, here’s how: Clark County did not look at the Sphere and its parking requirements as a stand-alone venue.
Instead of requiring an 18,600-seat venue to have a certain amount of parking spaces, Clark County staff gave the Sphere a break by allowing the fancy venue to be lumped with the Palazzo and Venetian hotel-casinos and the Sands Expo convention center in regard to determining the number of parking spaces.
So the required parking under county rules for Sphere, Palazzo/Venetian and Sands Expo Center was 13,910 spaces, but the county approved a request that reduced the parking spaces to only 12,405.
And here’s the kicker: Clark County was told there were ALREADY 12,101 parking spaces at the Venetian/Palazzo properties.
So, subtract the already-existing 12,101 parking spaces from the approved 12,405 and you will see that a venue with more than 18,000 seats got away with providing only 304 new spaces.
And that folks, is how business is done and approved in Clark County.
Clark County government and commissioners OKed the Sphere believing garages serving the neighboring Venetian and Palazzo would provide enough car spaces, along with other parking garages and lots in the Strip corridor.
As for the F1 race, parking will be hard to find because the race course itself strangles roads in the Strip corridor.
The A’s stadium is scheduled to be open for the Major League Baseball (MLB) season in 2028. A’s owner John Fisher insists the $1.5 billion domed stadium can fit on a nine-acre footprint at the 35-acre site at the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue.
The owner of the Tropicana is planning to implode the Tropicana hollowed-out towers during the early morning hours of Oct. 9. The A’s say they will have a groundbreaking in 2025. It probably will happen around April.
Even with the A’s stadium holding only 33,000 seats, the infrastructure is limited at one of the busiest intersections in Clark County. The local public transportation organization, called the RTC, hires a bus company to provide a double-decker bus to serve the Strip. There are parking garages at nearby hotels like MGM Grand, Luxor, Excalibur and New York New York that the A’s will undoubtedly designate for fans to use.
The team said Clark County will review the stadium’s transportation plans.
That’s like saying a wolf is guarding the chicken coop.
The seven county commissioners who govern Clark County do not include a single watchdog who cracks down on the teams, stadiums and events in the Strip corridor.
If you see county commission meetings or attend county commissioner events you will notice they function more as cheerleaders for the sports teams than unbiased regulators.
Good luck attending the big UFC 306 MMA fight show event at the Sphere Saturday. UFC bossman Dana White said it will be the greatest sports entertainment show in history.
White has a way of exaggerating.
Kind of like the county commissioners and Clark County staff saying they are regulating the Strip just fine.
