Concept of domed stadium at UNLV gains new impetus
The idea of building a stadium with a dome at UNLV is back in play only a year after a panel controlled by the gaming industry recommended an open-air stadium with a shading system.
The notion of a covered multipurpose stadium on 42 acres of the UNLV campus gained momentum on Thursday, when several event promoters and a prominent UNLV official told a new gubernatorial tourism infrastructure committee that a roofed, 55,000-seat stadium was the way to go to attract new events to the Las Vegas market.
After the tourism meeting, even Las Vegas Events President Pat Christenson told the Review-Journal that he preferred a covered stadium over an open-air venue in Las Vegas because “you’re limited with the type of event and the time of year” with an open-air stadium. Christenson’s Las Vegas Events is the nonprofit event promotion arm of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
The domed stadium concept drew other supporters, such as Las Vegas Bowl Executive Director John Saccenti. He said he can’t recruit two high-profile college football teams to play a neutral-stadium game in Las Vegas in September because the conditions in an open-air stadium are too hot.
“If you do a 40,000-seat, open-air stadium, you’re limiting yourself to do other special events,” Saccenti said.
Saccenti noted when the Peach Bowl moved to a bigger, roofed stadium, the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, it sold more tickets and lured more revenue-making sponsors.
“It’s worth the investment,” Saccenti said of a domed stadium.
The political problem for UNLV is that an 11-member stadium board that spent a year looking at the UNLV stadium issue decided a year ago to recommend a $523 million, 45,000-seat open-air stadium with a shading system, similar to a new football stadium at Baylor University. The stadium board also agreed UNLV would not lobby the state for stadium funding until 2017.
The UNLV stadium is proposed for a site at Tropicana Avenue and Koval Lane, near the MGM Grand parking garage. UNLV, which wants to buy the land by Dec. 18 for $50 million, seeks to use the stadium for its football team. But it would also consider the stadium a neutral venue for all events in much the same way the Thomas & Mack Center functions on campus.
Last year’s stadium panel, which had representatives from MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment, Boyd Gaming, Station Casinos and Wynn Resorts, recommended the cheapest stadium option over the $833 million, 55,000-seat domed stadium option. None of the gaming industry representatives on the stadium board voiced support for a domed stadium last year.
But that didn’t stop Don Snyder, UNLV’s stadium point man who chaired last year’s stadium board, from saying at Thursday’s tourism infrastructure meeting that the UNLV stadium needs to be covered with seating for 55,000-60,000.
Snyder made his comments when William Hornbuckle, MGM Resorts International president and a tourism infrastructure member, asked him point-blank what he wanted in a stadium.
And during a meeting break, UNLV President Len Jessup, who is vice chairman of the Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee, observed that the domed stadium option appeared to be making a comeback.
“The economics suggest a larger domed stadium pencils out better,” Jessup said.
The new panel is charged with fashioning a report on infrastructure needed to keep Las Vegas ahead in the competitive tourism industry. It spent more than six hours Thursday hearing from a who’s who of Las Vegas stadium/arena operators and event promoters during the marathon fact-finding session. The infrastructure committee is spending a year on its mission.
All the talk of a domed stadium excited Regent and Las Vegas lawyer James Dean Leavitt, who was a member of last year’s stadium board (officially known as the “Campus Improvement Authority Board”) and was the most outspoken advocate for a UNLV stadium with a roof.
“I appreciated that they (Snyder and Jessup) went out on a limb” for the domed stadium option, said Leavitt, who also attended Thursday’s meeting.
A crucial part of the domed vs. open-air stadium debate will be nailing down the actual number of events — and their related economic impact revenues — that would come to a domed stadium but not an open-air stadium in the Las Vegas market. And then, an evaluation would be needed on whether the economic impact of those events is worth spending millions of dollars more on a covered venue.
UNLV needs to navigate a delicate political tightrope because it will require some financial support from the gaming industry to build the stadium. Last year’s open-air stadium recommendation was a major drop in size, scope and cost compared to the former $950 million domed “Mega Events Center” stadium project that the university once considered with former private partner, Majestic Realty.
In February 2013, MGM Resorts said the megaevents center was too expensive and UNLV switched course on its stadium plans, dropping Majestic Realty and creating the stadium panel to bring the gaming industry on board as partners.
Even with UNLV officials and event promoters endorsing the domed stadium approach Thursday, there was some pushback from one of the tourism infrastructure committee members. Mike Sloan, Station Casinos senior vice president, told a group of event promoters at the meeting, “Build it and they will come sometimes doesn’t work out.”
Another tourism infrastructure board member, Kim Sinatra, Wynn Resorts general counsel, was in the unique position to evaluate the stadium topic because she also was a member of last year’s stadium board.
Sinatra, the lone representative to sit as a member on both boards, said through a Wynn spokesman that “she is still considering an opinion on the topic.”
MGM Resorts’ representative on last year’s stadium board was executive Rick Arpin, who oversees the new $375 million arena that MGM and Anschutz Entertainment Group are partnering to build on the Strip. It opens in April. Arpin, who made a presentation on the arena Thursday, was unavailable to discuss the domed stadium topic Friday.
Regent Leavitt said ideally he would want all the major hotel-casino companies and the gaming industry to partner with UNLV on building and funding a domed stadium. Some of MGM Resorts’ properties on the Strip are within walking distance of the UNLV stadium site.
Leavitt noted, “We need to prepare to do this with or without MGM.”
Contact reporter Alan Snel at asnel@reviewjournal.com. Find him on twitter: @BicycleManSnel