EDITORIAL: Missing piece of tourism infrastructure

The job of the Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee is made plain by the panel’s name. The resort corridor requires investment to keep Las Vegas ahead of its global competition, so it is imperative that committee members prioritize the big-ticket projects needed to keep this region the most popular visitor destination in the United States.

We have the hotels and casinos. We have the dining, shopping and entertainment. We have the arenas and a growing amount of convention space. But one piece of tourism-related infrastructure is missing from the Strip: a state-of-the-art stadium.

The committee is considering about $25 billion worth of tourism infrastructure investment, including new mass transit systems. When it meets Thursday at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the committee will hear its most important pitch to date: a stadium proposal from Las Vegas Sands Corp.

The casino operator is backing the public-private stadium, which would be built within the resort corridor. In a preliminary proposal, Sands has declared its willingness to cover about one-third of the projected $1.2 billion cost, with two-thirds coming from taxes on tourists. Sands officials have said their proposed cost split is likely to change. (Full disclosure: The Review-Journal is owned by the family of Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson.)

The need for a modern stadium within the resort corridor cannot be disputed. The region’s lone such venue, Sam Boyd Stadium, is inadequate in every way. It’s far removed from the Strip, off Russell Road and Boulder Highway. Built in 1971, the stadium is hopelessly outdated; no facelift or major upgrade can bring it up to today’s standards, particularly for a city booming with first-class entertainment venues. Sam Boyd Stadium is an unappealing facility in a location that doesn’t serve the city or the university, greatly limiting its ability to attract and retain the special events that drive visitation and create economic impact.

That Sam Boyd Stadium hosts events such as Supercross and USA Rugby Sevens is a testament to the appeal of Las Vegas, not the stadium itself. How much bigger could those and other events be if they were staged at a bigger, better venue within walking distance of hotels?

Among the projects competing with the stadium for limited resources is a $2.3 billion expansion and upgrade of the Las Vegas Convention Center. But the city has no shortage of world-class convention space, with millions of square feet right where it needs to be — throughout the resort corridor. Las Vegas Sands operates the Sands Expo and Convention Center, the largest privately owned conference center in the world. MGM Resorts International runs the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, has a conference center at the MGM Grand and plans to expand convention space at Aria. The publicly funded Las Vegas Convention Center competes against private enterprise for special events.

The idea of a stadium receiving public funding — no matter the amount — will create reflexive opposition. Should this venue come to fruition, there’s a great likelihood it would attract an NFL franchise. But the project is not being proposed to lure a professional sports team. It would be built first and foremost to attract new special events and increase visitation — precisely the kind of project tourist-paid taxes are intended to cover.

Last year, the Review-Journal opposed a publicly funded downtown soccer stadium for reasons that don’t carry over to the Las Vegas Sands project. First, all the financial risk of constructing and maintaining the soccer venue would have been placed upon city of Las Vegas taxpayers, and no one else. Second, the project would have diverted resources dedicated to public parks. Third, and most importantly, the soccer stadium was too small, too inflexible and too far from the Strip to have the kind of economic impact of the proposed Sands dome. Bruce Springsteen was not walking through that door.

Throughout the debate on the downtown soccer venue (a project that ultimately died), we were adamant that the valley needed a new stadium, but that it had to be a larger-scale project close to the resort corridor and geared toward mega-events, not a soccer-first facility built to primarily benefit Major League Soccer. The Sands proposal and the downtown proposal are not comparable in any way.

If the Las Vegas Convention Center expansion and refurbishment were to go forward, it could very easily be completed for far less than $2.3 billion. And for what? The convention center won’t be able to lure big shows away from other cities because the prime dates they desire won’t be available. A bigger, fancier Las Vegas Convention Center won’t be more attractive in the July heat. The community would get far more bang for its buck from a far smaller investment in a new domed stadium.

The Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee will issue its final recommendations this summer, and the Nevada Legislature will have the final say on how to pay for needed resort corridor projects. We’re about to learn a lot more about the Sands stadium proposal. It should be the committee’s highest priority.