Yes.
Though planners don't expect McCarran Airport passenger counts to continue growing at the 1990s rate (from 19 million passengers in 1990 to 33.6 million in 1999), they project that McCarran will exceed its carrying capacity by 2010. Thus, in 2000, a formal $2 billion plan was proposed to expand airport facilities over the next 12 years: $1 billion would be spent on adding new legs to existing gates and building a whole new terminal, and another billion would be spent on a new airport to occupy 6,300 acres of federal property in Ivanpah Valley, 35 miles south of Las Vegas.
Legislation approved in the final weeks of the Clinton administration calls for the Bureau of Land Management to sell 6,500 acres between Jean and Primm to the developers of the airport. Clark County planners are in the process of considering residential and commercial developments for the estimated 9,000 workers the airport will require when completed. Water agencies, for example, are working on plans for a $26 million water pipeline to the area; they hope to complete the project by 2006.
Construction of the airport could begin in 2008, with a projected completion of 2014. Howver, environmentalists oppose the Ivanpah airport, so it could get tied up in the courts for a while.
