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City plan would pair arena, entertainment district
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Updated: Apr. 7, 2010 | 7:39 a.m.
The city of Las Vegas' push for an arena and entertainment district is moving forward and an arena is an important part of the plan, a city official said Tuesday.
"We're along pretty well," said Scott Adams, chief urban redevelopment officer, referring to Las Vegas' ongoing negotiations with The Cordish Co. to develop about 20 city-owned acres at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Stewart Avenue, including the current site of City Hall.
"They quite frankly really are looking hard at the arena because that really drives their whole development," he said.
Nothing formal has been presented to the council.
The comment came on the same day that Clark County commissioners decided to look more closely at three proposals for arenas on or near the Strip that are competing with the city project to be the first project to start construction.
Proponents of one of those projects, planned just south of the Sahara, are eager to get started and even have prepared architectural plans, drawings and project details.
The city's idea is to mix an arena, entertainment and gaming on the downtown site. That makes it easier to close "the gap," Adams said -- the difference between how much revenue an arena would generate and how much it actually costs to build.
"You mix those things together, you get to a point where it makes more sense and you close that gap," he said. "I would question on some of the other sites the ability to close that gap without a large amount of private development to help subsidize the arena -- without a big public injection of dollars.
"I don't believe anybody who says they're ready to go later this year. That means they can do it without public money."
The city's proposal will probably require some public investment as well. As the city has done with other projects, the Redevelopment Agency or tax-increment financing -- both using increases in property taxes as a revenue source -- could be used, as could improvement districts targeted at the project site.
ALAN CHOATE/LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
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In the year 2000 the Golden Nugget corporation had revenue of $222.273 million. In the year 2009 the Golden Nugget corporation had revenue of $216.800 million. That is for both the Las Vegas and the Laughlin properties.
Tilman Fertita invested over $1/2 billion dollars in this property that represents 1 out of 3 hotel rooms on Fremont street. In light of this fact, it is hard to imagine building an entertainment district.
Las Vegas Boulevard and Stewart Avenue? There isn't even enough interest to build public outhouses there let along a stadium. More crackpipe dreams of "revitalizing" downtown which will end up being yet another failure. The Fremont Street Experience has been a huge failure. NeonFlopolis is a farce beyond measure sitting 90% unoccupied. The mob museum is going to sit around collecting dust. In case these developers and dreamers haven't noticed, there's a huge economic recession in Las Vegas. This city has the highest unemployment numbers in the country and cities are scrambling to find the millions of dollars they're in the hole for. This is yet another bad idea that will do absolutely nothing for downtown other than to create a drain on taxpayer money...because taxpayers will be stuck with the yearly upkeep on this white elephant.
Ok, here goes,
1. City Hall is a perfectly fine building. Paint the exterior Mayan Style as in Mexico City. Upgrade with state-of-the-art technology. DONE.
2. I would tear down Neonopolis and/or configure that building into the arena design and keep it, just for gaming in that WHOLE building. To pay for expenditures for the 20,000 seat arena.
3. Or, tear down the Thomas and Mack and give UNLV a state-of-the-art building that is a multi-use-complex.
4. #3, UNLV would be the cheapest route. And it is the perfect site to benefit both the City, County and State.
“Sports arenas generate extra income for their communities”. “Since sports arenas generate income for their communities, they should be funded through the tax payer in one form or another.” These statements are patently false. All hogwash, of course. Outright lies, if you will.
Pro sports are fun. Pro sports are entertaining. But, there has never been a publicly funded stadium that has financially benefited the community. The politicians love them because they represent a “cause” that many voters perceive as a good thing. We should not let the politicians spend our money so foolishly as to make rich team owners and rich players make even more money at the taxpayer’s expense.
If a Las Vegas arena is such a good thing, let the private sector build it. After all, they say it’s such a profitable idea, right?
The proposal that a professional sports team would financially succeed in Las Vegas is another “Great Lie”. But, that’s another discussion for another time.
The taxpayers should just say no to such a publically funded fiasco..