UNLV stadium project takes shape with architect’s help

Dan Meis loved playing sports while growing up in the small town of Windsor, Colo., an hour north of Denver.

In 1985, he earned an architecture degree at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he got his first job working on skyscraper and civic building designs for famed architect Helmut Jahn.

But the 51-year-old architect didn't put sports and architecture together until he moved to Kansas City, Mo. - the cradle of sports architects - in 1992, when the nation's stadium-building boom exploded with taxpayer-financed retro baseball parks, football stadiums and downtown arenas. Meis moved to Kansas City to join the Ellerbe Becket architecture firm for what he described as his "boot camp" experience.

It was a humble start in the world of sports architecture for the Venice, Calif.-based architect who is designing UNLV's proposed domed football stadium/mega-event center for private developer Majestic Realty. Majestic is the university's partner for the stadium and a student village development dubbed "UNLV Now." Over the past two decades, Meis has assembled an impressive sports venue resume that can compete with those of the world's leading sports architects.

In the U.S., Meis designed an NBA arena, Staples Center in Los Angeles; two Major League Baseball parks with retractable roofs, Miller Park in Milwaukee and Safeco Field in Seattle; and NFL stadiums for the Cincinnati Bengals and Philadelphia Eagles. Meis noted the Bengals stadium is the only professional sports facility to win a prestigious American Institute of Architects honor.

Abroad, he designed a fascinating sports venue in Japan called the Saitama Super Arena, which can transform from a 20,000-seat arena into a 37,000-seat stadium, depending on the event. And he's working on soccer stadiums for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and a sports project at a famous venue in Rome you may have heard of - the Colosseum.

Meis, a married father of a 19-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter who lives in Pacific Palisades, Calif., said he enjoys designing stadiums because various people use these venues.

"It's a very passion-laced building type," Meis said.

Meis has history with the developer of the proposed UNLV stadium because he worked with Majestic on Staples Center, which houses the NBA's Lakers and Clippers. That relationship dates to 1994, said Craig Cavileer, Majestic's point man for the UNLV events center project and president of the Silverton.

Cavileer said Meis was part of the NBBJ architecture team that made Staples Center one of the country's premier sports venues.

Meis' design of the UNLV stadium shows both practical and creative design aspects, Cavileer said.

"It's not an NFL stadium. It's not a college football stadium. He designed it to build it around an experience," Cavileer said.

One of the building's most prominent design features is being heralded as the biggest indoor video screen of any domed stadium in the world, extending longer than a football field.

Meis said he was involved early in the design of the UNLV project and took it to heart when Majestic president and chief executive Ed Roski said he would watch the video screen at the Hollywood Bowl even though he had great box seats. That inspired Meis to design a video screen that would create a distinct experience at the proposed UNLV events building.

The proposed stadium also would feature theater-style seating and six "super suites" each holding 250 to 300 people. Each suite would sell for more than $1 million apiece.

"That's what attracts him to the project," Cavileer said. "It's extremely unique in a dynamic market."

Meis said the video-screen technology is so advanced that fans can experience an event through it with as much enjoyment as they would get from watching the event itself.

"There's not going to be another venue like that, and it's going to be different (from other) college football stadiums," Meis said.

Contact reporter Alan Snel at asnel@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5273.