LVCVA easements to enable link to Resorts World, charging station

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board of directors on Tuesday approved a pair of easement agreements that will solidify construction of a tunnel linking the Resorts World Las Vegas resort with the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The board also authorized easement access to NV Energy to install a transformer for a charging station for the Tesla vehicles that will be used in The Boring Co.’s Convention Center Loop underground people-mover system.

The easement approvals won’t cost the LVCVA anything.

The board unanimously authorized the agreements, one of which would allow access to a broad curving tunnel partially beneath Las Vegas Boulevard from Resorts World that would end at the northwest corner of the new Las Vegas Convention Center West Hall near Elvis Presley Boulevard. Resorts World is scheduled to open next summer.

The Clark County Commission authorized the Resorts World tunnel Feb. 3, but the easement agreement with the LVCVA was required for The Boring Co. to access the project.

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman, a member of the board, voted in favor of the agreement after several earlier dissenting votes involving the Las Vegas Monorail system.

Goodman said that while she would support the link to Resorts World she is concerned about The Boring Co. potentially building a 15-mile Vegas Loop underground transit system throughout the city without submitting a request for proposals through the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, which operates the city’s bus lines.

The Boring system has the potential of cutting into the RTC’s bus revenue stream if it is successfully completed as envisioned.

The Boring tunnel from Resorts World would not connect directly to the Vegas Loop or the Convention Center Loop but stations would be a short walk from the end of the Resorts World line.

The NV Energy transformer for The Boring Co. charging station would be located adjacent to the Cambridge Warehouse at the corner of Cambridge Street and Lisbon Avenue, east of the Convention Center.

The charging station will be needed to keep the fleet of Tesla vehicles used in the Convention Center Loop system charged.

The Boring Co. has indicated it would use up to 62 vehicles on Tesla chassis with some vehicles capable of carrying up to 16 passengers at a time. Vehicles would be programmed in self-driving mode to deliver passengers through a mile of twin tunnels beneath the Convention Center between three stations. LVCVA officials have said initially, a driver would be inside the vehicles and that self-driving modes would be used in a few months.

Chief Operating Officer Brian Yost told the board that the new West Hall expansion is 99 percent complete and workers put in 49,000 labor hours in January on projects within the building.

Workers completed loading docks, installed kitchen equipment for food service and completed the installation of a 150-by-71-foot LED screen in the new facility. Workers also replaced a sidewalk for a bus stop on Paradise Road.

Solar panels at two of the three Convention Center Loop people-mover stations have been installed and all paving and striping has been completed, Yost said. Solar panels also have been installed on the hall rooftops to help power the building.

The underground Station 2 escalator and elevator have been completed and a video screen installed.

Yost said when the LVCVA took possession of the building on Dec. 21 it brought back six security officers that had been furloughed and they have been trained and are stationed at the building. A Metropolitan Police Department substation isn’t contemplated at the West Hall, but there’s a station east of the Convention Center that oversees the entire campus.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.