Parking, traffic concerns for Raiders Stadium aired
Providing adequate transportation infrastructure for Las Vegas’ impending NFL stadium was a chief concern for members of local town advisory boards who convened Wednesday night.
Representatives of the Raiders, Clark County and the towns met at the Clark County Government Center to discuss the $1.9 billion, 65,000-seat domed stadium expected to be built by the start of the 2020 NFL season, when the team is expected to begin playing in Las Vegas.
The stadium would be adjacent to Interstate 15, near the intersection of Hacienda and Polaris avenues, and questions about traffic and parking dominated the discussion.
“Our concern, I think, is to make sure proper consideration is given to the additional thousands of cars coming down Russell (Road), Hacienda, Tropicana (Avenue),” said John Getter, a Spring Valley Town Advisory Board member. “I think it behooves us to use this opportunity to better the entire southwest area. Better connections to the Strip. Better connections to the airport.”
To comply with county code, the stadium will need to build or find close to 14,000 off-site parking spaces. Those will need to be accompanied by adequate methods of ferrying hordes of ticket holders from those sites to the stadium, which will have parking for only about 2,400 personal vehicles.
Clark County Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak said the owners of two private parcels less than a mile north of the stadium have reached out to his office. Sisolak declined to provide details, other than that the Raiders are negotiating with the owners, whose sites are large enough to solve the parking problem.
Other proposed solutions included building series of smaller off-site park-and-ride lots, partnering with Strip resorts for parking and allowing nearby private business owners to rent their parking spaces for stadium events.
‘The parking solution will be solved,” Sisolak said. “It’s just going to be expensive, or more expensive, or more expensive.”
‘Accelerated, condensed schedule’
The Paradise Town Advisory Board will review plans for the stadium and make recommendations on the project in a public meeting Tuesday, and the county zoning commission will vote Aug. 16 on whether to approve the plans.
“From there, we’re ready to begin,” said Nancy Amundsen, the county’s director of comprehensive planning.
Preliminary excavation on the site is slated to begin in late November. Workers will begin pouring concrete in spring 2018.
Project Principal John Wood, who built U.S. Bank Stadium for the Minnesota Vikings, called the project “ambitious” but said his team will have the stadium open for the 2020 kickoff.
“There’s going to be a great overlap in the start of construction and completion of design,” he said. “It’s a very accelerated, condensed schedule.”
Project consultant Don Webb, principal and founder of Cordell Corp., said that, besides transportation and scheduling, the biggest challenge of building the stadium will be budgeting the process.
“There will be months where we will be spending money on the stadium in excess of $70 million,” he said.
Contact Michael Scott Davidson at sdavidson@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861. Follow @davidsonlvrj on Twitter.