By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — I recall the moment well. It was back in the good ol’ days in 2013 when I worked at the local newspaper in Las Vegas and a former MGM Resorts International executive by the name of Rick Arpin had this to say about a planned arena for the Strip.
“We’re going to build that sucker,” said Arpin, the former MGM Resorts exec.
That’s so much cheap talk and pretty renderings that don’t go anywhere in Las Vegas, but in this case Arpin was true to his words.
MGM Resorts International joined forces with LA-based Anschutz Entertainment Group to build a $375 million arena shoehorned between New York New York, Park MGM and Frank Sinatra Drive, a ten-minute walk west of Las Vegas Boulevard. Golden Knights owner Bill Foley later bought a 15 percent share of the building.
A groundbreaking was staged in 2014 and the building opened in April 2016. Now on the cusp of turning a decade old, this venue changed Las Vegas forever, opening the gate to major league sports and colossal sports events that are braided into Las Vegas’ one-dimensional, tourism-based economy.
Built for $375 million in 2016, this arena that can hold 20,000 seems like a financial bargain when you consider the MLB Athletics are building a 33,000-fan domed stadium for $2 billion that’s supposed to debut in 2028.
LVSportsBiz.com spoke with Populous senior principal and senior architect Jason Carmello about this arena.
LVSportsBiz.com has always admired the arena design that cultivated a vibe that featured an open interior space built to a human scale while integrating patron comfort into a building that included diverse programming from Golden Knights games and Bruce Springsteen concerts to NBA Cup finals and UFC fight shows.
“The goal was to create a dynamic, energetic, thoughtful and efficient arena,” Carmello told LVSportsBiz.com Tuesday. “The arena set the tone for what professional sports would be in not just Las Vegas but also in the United States.”
From the start, the arena design was inspired by the duality of Las Vegas of blending the energy of the Strip with the landscape of the high desert.
When you’re attending a Golden Knights game these days, you see the natural light flooding the main lobby an hour before puck drop. And then when darkness descends on the Strip, you feel the lights of the night.
While the lower and upper bowls include most of the arena’s seats, there were other specialty and premium seating sections from the single level of suites and Hyde Lounge near the top of the arena to an open club on one level and outdoor terrace spaces.
All the while the arena had to be efficiently designed, too, for the diverse programming filling the building, Carmello said.
“The design team wanted to emphasize the architecture in Las Vegas and underlying current while also making it efficient and thoughtful,” he said. “We wanted to make sure every patron had a special place in a city that anybody and everybody can enjoy differently, from the diversity of seating types whether it was inside the bowl or on the outside terraces.”
The arena’s original construction price was $350 million before it was upped to $375 million in 2016. Four years later the Raiders opened their domed venue about two miles to the southwest in 2020 when that 62,000-seat stadium had a $1.4 billion construction budget. The A’s have increased their ballpark construction bill on the Strip at Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue to $2 billion with an opening slated for 2028.
“The design team was proud to accomplish our goals at such an efficient price point,” Carmello said.
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Populous worked with VGK owner Foley when the arena opened for the Golden Knights, and he’s aware that Foley and his investment team are willing to spend $300 million on updating T-Mobile Arena to accommodate a potential NBA tenant.
He noted the arena is very flexible to handle everything from hockey and basketball to concerts and fights. And LVSportsBiz.com has watched arena workers convert the venue from VGK games to UFC events and basketball games.
Populous’ recent hockey arena projects include venues for the NHL New York Islanders and Seattle Kraken. What’s interesting about the Kraken’s arena is that building in Seattle — like T-Mobile Arena — might house a future NBA team.
“We knew the building would be asked to accommodate a lot of events and a very robust calendar,” Carmello said of T-Mobile Arena.
The arena architect also analyzed the walking and driving circulation patterns around T-Mobile Arena, with fans coming from every direction from the Strip through The Park to motorists coming from Interstate 15 and along Frank Sinatra Drive.
“We spent a lot of time working on circulation patterns and pedestrian circulation flow,” he said.
And never forget bicycles, too. The arena turning ten might just have the best bicycle racks of any arena in the U.S.
PSA