Improvements shine in $72.5 million upgrade at Thomas & Mack

Mike Newcomb popped out of his executive office at The Thomas & Mack Center and had a spring in his step. His 32-year-old venue on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus is undergoing a $72.5 million makeover, and the arena director was eager to show the improvements.

The first stop was a mere 10 feet from his ground-floor office — a new elevator that led to an American with Disabilities Act balcony area with enough space for 24 wheelchairs and 24 accompanying people. The arena more than tripled its ADA space, from 26 spots to 98 spots.

That was only the beginning. He scanned the arena bowl and noted all 19,000 red seats have been replaced, complete with a sharp black trim and "UNLV" at the end of each row.

Big-ticket arena modernization items include:

— A 10,000-square-foot hospitality/multipurpose addition on the arena's west side, which includes a 2,500-square-foot balcony offering a view of the Strip's skyline. That addition costs $13 million. The versatile space can host everything from corporate events and weddings to National Finals Rodeo parties and UNLV gatherings.

— An expanded Si Redd Room, which is a current big meeting and hospitality room, now directly linked to the lower bowl's seating sections via a portal hallway. The portal gives the Redd Room the feel of a giant "bunker suite" seen in many new arenas, where fans can sit courtside or in lower-bowl seats and walk straight to a back room for food and drinks without having to access the concourse.

— TMC's main common space has been widened and expanded to include 100 more bathroom stalls and latrines, 30 more points of sale so that there are now more than 125 concession stands and new flooring. Signage along the concourse is new.

In all, 36,000 square feet have been added to the building, which opened in 1983 at a cost of nearly $30 million.

The concession stands will have a point-of-sale computer tablet-based system.

With Thomas & Mack and UNLV officials overseeing the arena modernization project, they thought it would also be a good time to explore some revenue-generating options.

For example, they are pursuing a sports complex naming rights deal that would package Thomas & Mack with its adjacent sports facilities — Cox Pavilion and Mendenhall Center. Consulting company Legends won a bid to pursue the naming rights deal for the three-facility complex.

Other ideas include selling space on the roof to advertise a corporate name.

Construction is expected to be finished in March — a month before the opening of a new 20,000-seat arena two miles west on the Strip. Heavyweights MGM Resorts International and Anschutz Entertainment Group are partnering on the privately financed $375 million arena, which will also stage music and sports events.

Professional Bull Riding just held its final world championship event at Thomas & Mack and will move its fall event to the new MGM-AEG arena in 2016.

Construction on the Thomas & Mack improvements started in October 2014.

Thomas & Mack traces its history to 1983 and is named for two prominent Las Vegas bankers, E. Parry Thomas and Jerome Mack, who donated $500,000 for the feasibility study and initial drawings. The arena improvements include a new tribute area on the concourse for the duo.

— Contact reporter Alan Snel at asnel@reviewjournal.com. Find him on Twitter: @BicycleManSnel