After a long period of dormancy, the UNLV on-campus stadium, proposed by Majestic Realty, owner of Silverton Casino & Lodge, is back in the news. By a three-to-one margin, the Nevada System of Higher Education voted on June 1 to continue with Majestic’s plan to build a sport facility on the southwest corner of the UNLV campus. Completion of the project would require, among other things, rerouting of northbound traffic on Swenson Avenue, the main arterial road out of McCarran International Airport. Majestic’s plans call for its stadium to sit across from what is now Swenson, just north of Tropicana Boulevard.
Several hurdles to completion remain. Majestic’s plan – which incorporates dining and retail – is contingent upon making the area a special tax-increment zone. Any levies generated on-site (including property taxes) would go to the university, not the state, to retire the bonds financing the stadium. Since sales taxes are, along with gaming, one of Nevada’s two primary sources of state revenue, this could be a tough sell. Also, there is currently no budget for the 52,0000-seat stadium, which would dwarf any other venue in the area and probably cost $300 million, minimum. (Sam Boyd Stadium seats 40,000.)
Three thousand housing units and a Town Square-like urban mall would surround the coliseum, cannibalizing 150 of UNLV’s 332 acres, at a total project cost of $2 billion. Silverton President Craig Cavileer describes these megadorms as "really mini resorts, with great gyms, Wi-Fi areas with big-screen TVs, movie theaters and literally resort-quality swimming pools." Both UNLV and Majestic are touting the development with sky-high revenue projections ($500 million a year) and the usual bombast: "We’re really changing things for the next 100 years … the most exciting college facility ever built in the United States." Meanwhile, UNLV is laying off faculty, downsizing departments, and eradicating entire degree programs right and left.
"UNLV Now," as it’s called, sits directly under a McCarran runway path. Planes descend very low over Tropicana when landing and it would be surprising if the Federal Aviation Administration did not register a strong objection, as it did to Christopher Milam and James Packer’s Crown Las Vegas skyscraper (subsequently abandoned).
Luckily for Majestic, although multiple other stadium proposals have been floated recently – including one out back of Harrah’s Las Vegas – none has gained traction. (A $1.3 billion, Milam-led facility near M Resort is still in the feasibility-study phase.) The inability to agree on where to build symbolizes an underlying philosophical debate: Should a 52K-seat facility be targeted primarily toward tourists or locals? Those who want to market to tourists would use such a dome mainly for things like rock festivals and Pac 12 football games. Building at UNLV would allow Rebel football games to be brought home from distant Boyd Stadium, seven miles away. It would also provide a bigger on-campus venue for the National Finals Rodeo, as well as for NFL exhibition games, Major League Soccer, national political conventions and concerts by artists like U2 and Bruce Springsteen who avoid playing the Strip because of casinos’ inordinate ticket prices.
One problem: Nevada’s cash-strapped state government would have to OK the rerouting of tax monies toward building a stadium – in UNLV’s case, a dome that won’t be sending any money back to Carson City. With Gov. Brian Sandoval having to raise and extend existing taxes to keep the state afloat, both he and the Legislature could be a tough crowd.
Click here to view a slideshow depicting the latest proposed design for the stadium.
