By DAN KARELL
Las Vegas may have to wait a few more years before bringing an MLS club to the city.
A stadium proposal jointly made by the Cordish Companies and Findlay Sports & Entertainment won’t receive City Council approval at the next meeting on Oct. 1, according to a report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The proposal is backed by Las Vegas mayor Carolyn Goodman and a pair of council members, but councilwoman Lois Tarkanian represents the swing vote and has decided not to vote in favor of the stadium due to fears over public funding for the stadium. As such, MLS expansion likely won’t be coming to Las Vegas any time soon, considering that a new stadium is a prerequisite for nearly every expansion franchise.
The Cordish Companies and Findlay Sports & Entertainment announced on Aug. 26 a $200 million proposal for a stadium with a capacity of upwards of 24,000. Including the expected $100 million MLS expansion fee and interest and other payments, the full cost of the operation is expected to rise to more than $410 million.
The proposal originally claimed that 69 percent of the project would be covered by private funding, but a closer look showed that public funding would cover around 75 percent of the total stadium cost, or around $150 million. In addition, the deal called for Cordish and Findlay partnership to pay the city $3.5 million per year in rent and another $500,000-$1.5 million in non-soccer revenue over the course of 30 years.
A controversy broke after numbers were released that showed the proposal double-counting rent to the city, and a revised financial list was even more confusing for the City Council to wrap their heads around. The new figures included an assumption that an MLS expansion team playing in the stadium would contribute to paying rent, though there are plenty of questions as to if they’d make enough profit from the onset to even afford that.
Taking all this into account, Tarkanian has decided that she’d prefer not to vote in favor of a stadium, according to the report.
“I don’t feel comfortable with Cordish as a partner,” Tarkanian said. “Professionally, I felt we were not treated fairly.”
Cordish is Baltimore-based real estate development company specializing in casinos and entertainment districts.
“I don’t feel like spending a lot of taxpayer monies on it,” Tarkanian added. “People do want a stadium, but they don’t want the use of public money.”
MLS is currently meeting with officials in Sacramento to discuss their expansion efforts, and San Antonio, Miami, and Minneapolis are all interested in purchasing the final two expansion places as MLS attempts to expand to 24 teams by 2020.
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What do you think of this report? Did you expect the stadium proposal to be voted down? Do you see MLS coming to Las Vegas at some point in the future?
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