Las Vegas Metro Development News

[dragonsky]

Mark Davis says Las Vegas will “unite the Raider nation”

“I’m excited about it,” Davis said in comments televised on NFL Network. “It’s a new market. It’s got the potential to be a really exciting market. . . . The Raider fan in Northern California get upset a little bit when we talk about going to Los Angeles, and the L.A. fans get a little ticked off at the fans in Northern California, so it seems like Las Vegas is a neutral site that everybody’s kind of bought into. It will unite the Raider nation more than divide it.”

Asked if this means he’s given up on staying Oakland, Davis said, “No.”

And then he said this: “I’ve given my commitment to Las Vegas, and if they can come through with what they’re talked about doing, then we’ll go to Las Vegas.”

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com...raider-nation/

Davis: Studies on Raiders move to Las Vegas are 'positive'

Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis says the team has begun conducting market research studies to gather information about a potential move to Las Vegas.

Davis said Tuesday at the NFL owners meetings that the initial reports have come back "positive" about the feasibility of such a move. Unable to get a suitable stadium deal in Oakland, Davis wants to move the Raiders to the gambling city.

"I have given my commitment to Las Vegas and if they can get done what they're talking about doing, then we will go to Las Vegas," Davis said.

In April, Davis appeared before a Las Vegas stadium commission to not only pledge to move the Raiders to the city, but put $500 million into a $1.4 billion stadium. Davis gave no timetable for a potential move, saying it is up to the legislative process.

"We'll see how that goes," Davis said.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/busi...e79634977.html

[dragonsky]

Monte Carlo casino-hotel rebrands as Park MGM, NoMad

Today’s announcement that the Monte Carlo hotel will be redesigned as two hotels — the Park MGM Grand and NoMad Las Vegas — keeps a promise by MGM Resorts International Chairman and CEO Jim Murren to refrain from naming properties for international tourist destinations.

“We are not going to name it something from somewhere else. Those days are over,” Murren said on April 6, after a ribbon-cutting marking the opening of T-Mobile Arena. “This is Las Vegas; we are at the top of the list of entertainment cities. We are not second to anybody. We’re not going to have a property themed after a city from a far-away place.”

Renovations at the Monte Carlo are set to begin this year and finish by the close of 2018.

The renaming and redesign of the hotel will cost a reported $450 million and create two hotels: the Vegas outpost of Sydell Group's NoMad Hotel and the luxury resort Park MGM. Each hotel will feature renovated and redesigned rooms.

http://lasvegassun.com/vegasdeluxe/2...omad-450-mill/

[dragonsky]

Mark Davis bought Las Vegas Raiders website in 1999
http://sportsnaut.com/2016/06/mark-d...-website-1999/

Las Vegas mayor 'very, very confident' about Raiders relocation
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=15852434

[dragonsky]

• Video Link

• Video Link

• Video Link

• Video Link

[dragonsky]

Dream of NHL coming to Las Vegas is nearing reality

When Bettman explained the three scenarios the league was contemplating — expand by one or two teams, wait a year or put expansion on hold indefinitely — he covered both ends of the rink as far as Las Vegas and Quebec City are concerned.

The league’s nine-member executive committee meets this week, likely on Tuesday, though NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly refused to confirm the date. The group is expected to recommend Las Vegas to join the league for the 2017-18 season while deferring Quebec City until 2018-19.

When the NHL’s Board of Governors meets June 22 in Las Vegas, it is expected to rubber stamp the recommendation, culminating in a historic day, as the city will get its first major league sports franchise after decades of campaigning.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/...earing-reality

[dragonsky]

Las Vegas’ NHL expansion bid reaches critical stage

The long journey to bring a major league sports franchise to Las Vegas reaches a critical stage Tuesday. And if things go as Las Vegas hockey fans hope, a celebration will be planned for June 22.

The NHL’s nine-member executive committee is expected to meet in New York and make a decision on expansion for Las Vegas and Quebec City, the two cities that applied for teams in July. NHL officials would not confirm the Tuesday meeting, but multiple sources with knowledge of the situation say it’s on.

The committee’s recommendations will be put to a vote by the 30 Board of Governors at its meeting in Las Vegas on June 22. Twenty-four votes are needed for approval, and barring something highly unusual, the board will take its cue from the executive committee, which is made up of owners from Boston, Toronto, Chicago, Minnesota, Tampa Bay, Anaheim, Calgary, Washington and Carolina. Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs is the chairman.

The NHL last expanded in 2000 when Columbus and Minnesota joined the league, paying $80 million apiece. The reported price for expansion this time is $500 million per city.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/...critical-stage

[dragonsky]

Roger Goodell using his pull to keep Raiders in Oakland

The Raiders’ relocation saga is turning into a tug of war. Owner Mark Davis is pulling the team to Las Vegas. On the other end of the rope, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is exploring ways to keep the team in Oakland.

Goodell, according to a San Francisco Chronicle report, “has been making calls pushing the idea of letting a predominantly African-American investment group, led by former 49ers star Ronnie Lott, help build a new stadium for the Raiders in Oakland.”

In a Friday visit to Las Vegas, Davis repeated his commitment to relocate the franchise if a financing plan for a new domed stadium is approved. While Davis collects support from some of the league’s most powerful owners, it is becoming clear that Goodell could be his toughest opponent.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/...aiders-oakland

[dragonsky]

Video Link

[JMK]

Riviera implosion goes off without a hitch

Las Vegas bid a bittersweet goodbye to the Riviera early Tuesday morning, as the historic hotel’s Monaco tower came crashing down to pave the way for expanded convention facilities.

The 24-story tower was imploded around 2:35 a.m. Tuesday, preceded by a fireworks show and a countdown. A rumbling began, and the easternmost part of the tower began to fall first. The entire building ceased to exist in under a minute, and in the minutes that followed, the dust cleared, leaving a void on the northern end of the Strip.

...

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority acquired the property for $190 million in February 2015 and plans to expand convention facilities there.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/la...ut-hitch-video

[dragonsky]

AP Source: NHL settles on Las Vegas for expansion

The NHL’s executive committee has recommended that the league expand to Las Vegas, according to The Associated Press.

An expansion team to Las Vegas won’t be official until the league’s owners approve a vote, which will take place in Las Vegas on June 22 prior to the NHL Awards.

A Las Vegas team would be the 31st team in the league, and would begin play in the 2017-2018 season at T-Mobile Arena.

Quebec City in Quebec, Canada, also was considered by the NHL for expansion, but is not expected to receive a franchise.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/...ding-las-vegas

[dragonsky]

Self-driving minibus to hit streets in Las Vegas
http://lasvegassun.com/news/2016/jun...-in-las-vegas/

[N830MH]

Originally Posted by dragonsky

Self-driving minibus to hit streets in Las Vegas
http://lasvegassun.com/news/2016/jun...-in-las-vegas/

Wow! This will be first self-driving minibus. Unreal! How they can do that? Do they need a bus operator?

[dragonsky]

Cleveland Cavaliers toast NBA championship at XS

They arrived at McCarran International Airport at 1 a.m. and headed directly to the award-winning mega-club. Gorgeous cocktail servers were already decked out in LeBron jerseys with a custom cake made to replicate the Larry O’Brien championship trophy.

http://lasvegassun.com/vegasdeluxe/2...-championship/

[dragonsky]

Panel won’t finalize Las Vegas stadium financing, but it could come close

The state panel that’s developing a financing plan for a domed stadium in Las Vegas won’t finalize the proposal at its Thursday meeting, but it could come close.

The 11-member Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee has until the end of next month to deliver nonbinding recommendations to Gov. Brian Sandoval on the stadium, a Las Vegas Convention Center expansion and other big projects intended to boost the region’s visitor-driven economy.

Steve Hill, director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development and chairman of the infrastructure panel, said he hopes the committee can get through a checklist of stadium questions during Thursday’s meeting at UNLV. Among them: the role of a stadium authority board in making development decisions and overseeing operations.

But final decisions and recommendations probably wouldn’t be made until a July 11 meeting, Hill said Tuesday.

The committee’s biggest recommendations would require legislative approval to become reality, either during a special session or the 2017 regular session.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/busines...uld-come-close

[dragonsky]

Las Vegas awarded NHL expansion team

After decades of trying, Las Vegas skated into the major leagues Wednesday with the National Hockey League’s decision to award billionaire businessman Bill Foley an expansion franchise beginning with the 2017-18 season.

Foley will pay $500 million to join the league as its 31st team. The yet-to-be-named team, which collected more than 14,000 season ticket deposits as part of its “Vegas Wants Hockey” campaign beginning Feb. 10, 2015 through May, 2016, will play its home games at the 17,500-seat T-Mobile Arena.

With Foley at his side, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced the decision by the league’s Board of Governors to expand at a news conference at Encore. The vote, which was unanimous, followed the recommendation of the nine-member Executive Committee, which met June 7 in New York and advised expansion to Las Vegas.

Quebec City, which also had put in a bid to join the NHL, had its expansion plans put on hold.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/...expansion-team

[dragonsky]

Picking team name, logo tops list of what’s next for Las Vegas’ NHL franchise
Owner Bill Foley eases off Black Knights at expansion announcement

“We have a number of names that we’re going to send to the league and we’ll get the league’s view on the names,” Foley said. “Then we’re going to follow through and come up with something pretty quickly.”

The Black Knights was the presumed favorite team name for more than a year as a homage to Foley’s alma mater of West Point. For the first time, Foley hedged on the Black Knights shortly after Commissioner Gary Bettman announced he was awarded the team.

“I have to go through a process,” he said. “I like the name, maybe it’s political correctness that's not perfect. That’s all I will say.”

“We need to get this name, get this logo done and start selling some jerseys,” he said.

“My goal is to make it an international brand, so people come from China or they come from Europe, and they walk away and they’re wearing our jerseys, wearing our hats, wearing our T-shirts, have gym bags and so on.”

Foley offered no insight into his short list of names, though he noted it would reflect the team’s culture. And Foley is ambitious in that regard, as the best one-word way to describe what he hopes to instill is “win.”

http://lasvegassun.com/news/2016/jun...-whats-next-f/

[a very long weekend]

if you have to select a goofy north american-style name, "black knights" is about as good as it gets. better than the "aces" which is probably where they'll land.

[dragonsky]

Alternative stadium plan suggests $550 million in public money instead of $750 million

The head of an influential state tourism panel today suggested slashing the amount of public money for a proposed domed football stadium by $200 million, triggering strong pushback from the project’s private backers.

At a meeting of the Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee, Chairman Steve Hill introduced an alternative plan to fund the much-debated 65,000-seat stadium that could attract the Raiders to Las Vegas. The plan was not received well by representatives of the Raiders and the two companies teaming up to back the project, Las Vegas Sands Corp. and Majestic Realty Co.

The alternative entails using $550 million in money through hotel room taxes rather than the $750 million initially proposed.

Under that vision, the stadium cost would total $1.45 billion, which includes $50 million for land acquisition and $100 million for a practice facility. The Raiders would be responsible for $500 million, while Sands and Majestic would contribute $400 million.

http://vegasinc.com/business/2016/ju...million-in-pu/

[dragonsky]

Now that Las Vegas has NHL team, is it ready for Raiders?

The latest funding proposal calls for a $500 million contribution from the Raiders, $400 million from the Sands and Majestic developers, and $500 million from the public through hotel room taxes. The private partners, pushing for $750 million in public money throughout the process, reacted negatively to the surprise changes, revealed to them Wednesday afternoon and made public at Thursday morning’s committee meeting.

The next SNTIC meetings are scheduled for July 11 and 28, and recommending a funding plan and stadium site will be priorities. The final hurdle, assuming the stadium ultimately gets a green light from the Nevada Legislature and Gov. Brian Sandoval, is approval of the Raiders’ relocation from 24 of 32 NFL owners.

And Aguero knows there are more numbers stacking up in Las Vegas’ favor as a major-league city. In the past year, 2,061 new businesses opened in Southern Nevada; the population grew by 2.21 percent in 2015, ranking Las Vegas as the fifth-fastest growing metropolitan area in the nation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau; visitor spending exceeded $22 billion; and McCarran International Airport annually ranks as one of the nation’s 10 busiest airports.

There are several strong economic indicators that show Las Vegas is on the rise and ready for the major leagues. Among NFL cities — excluding Oakland and counting New York, which has two teams, as one market — Las Vegas would rank 24th out of 31 with a median household income of $52,070, according to figures researched by Applied Analysis.

“The economy is the best it has been in 10 years,” Aguero said. “In population growth, we’re the fifth-fastest growing metropolitan area in the United States. In employment growth, I think we’re in the top three in the country relative to that. We’ve had 2,000 businesses open up in the past year alone. Visitor volume is at the highest level we’ve ever seen. So the combination of those things, if you ask whether the market is trending in the right direction, the answer is absolutely yes.

The visitor element is what makes Las Vegas unique as opposed to other small-market NFL cities.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/...-ready-raiders

[dragonsky]

New gaming spaces, restaurants underline Cosmopolitan’s ongoing transformation

Cosmopolitan has bolstered its already industry-leading restaurant lineup with the addition of Beauty & Essex (a partnership with Tao Group and chef/restaurateur Chris Santos) and Eggslut (the walk-up diner out of L.A.), and the announcement of Momofuku (the Michelin two-star noodle restaurant founded by David Chang) and Milk Bar to open this year. In a stroke of luck, Milk Bar’s Christina Tosi earned a James Beard Award for Best Pastry Chef just a week after the partnership with the Cosmo was announced.

“We tore out Book & Stage and dedicated Clique to take 45 percent of the footprint, because we just needed a cool place to have a really cold drink and conversation, and we built this new, high-limit destination slot room,” McBeath says. “Our commitment to play in that space was the biggest game-changer we have had.”

The southeast corner of the casino was used for the new-and-improved sports book. “We extended the casino experience into this space, where we had 135 (slot) units, underperforming, and designed a race and sports book with a bar in the center. Something that would be appealing to anyone who wants a socialized experience, with pool tables and 22 video-poker machines that make more money than the 135 games they displace. The handle on the sports book has doubled, and the slots and beverage handle is great. We took this giant, dead Marvin Gardens space and at least put it close to a Pennsylvania Avenue.”

The theater at RRL has sat dormant since “Vegas Nocturne” bugged out in July 2014. McBeath and his team have entertained a wide variety of concepts and sent officials across the country to scout shows.

“The showroom needs to have a dedicated entertainment policy, and I don’t think that room can take two train wrecks in a row,” McBeath says. “I have to be very confident of what we do in there. As you know, there is no guarantee for success in any entertainment policy. I went through two shows that closed in my old life, with ‘Viva Elvis’ and ‘Zarkana.’ We’ll find something in there. Nothing is off the table, and it will be something where the economics work for all parties.”

As a sort of parting shot, the Cosmo’s chief added, “It has to be a good deal. To quote Steve, ‘It’s easy to do a bad deal, because there are so many of them out there.’ That voice resonates in the back of my mind every time I sit down and look at what we’re planning.”

http://lasvegassun.com/news/2016/jun...ath-big-moves/