Renderings unveiled of proposed North Strip resort with NBA arena
Renderings of what could become the tallest Strip resort — and home to one of two NBA-ready arenas that could someday host a Las Vegas basketball team — have been filed with Clark County and will be the subject of discussion Tuesday by the Winchester Town Advisory Board.
LVXP, a Las Vegas-based real estate development company, is scheduled to appear before the board that makes development recommendations to the Clark County Commission on its 752-foot, 2,605-unit hotel and condominium project next door to what is now the tallest Strip resort, Fontainebleau.
LVXP, headed by principals CEO James Frasure Jr., Chief of Staff Christine Richards and Chief Construction Officer Nick Tomasino, submitted a packet of maps, renderings and applications for the proposed resort earlier this month.
Plans show three high-rise towers, a 6,000-seat “grand theater” as well as an 18,000-seat state-of-the-art arena. The resort, on 17 acres sandwiched between the Sahara and Fontainebleau on land formerly holding the Wet ’n Wild waterpark and at one time proposed by former UNLV basketball star Jackie Robinson as the site for his All-Net Arena project, also would have a casino, retail with food and beverage venues, a swimming pool and recreational areas, a spa and health club, and a parking garage with underground and above-grade levels.
When LVXP first proposed the resort in April, it did not detail financing plans for the project nor an anticipated cost to build.
But the renderings submitted to the county were prepared by respected Las Vegas casino architect Paul Steelman of Steelman Partners LLP and share details about gold glass and silver glass on a curtain wall system with LED lighting.
One high-rise has a curving design element that swoops to a lower-level building.
The 752-foot height would make the building the highest resort on the Strip, 15 feet taller than Fontainebleau.
No assurance on NBA
The National Basketball Association, which conducts NBA Summer League games for rookies and second-year players every summer at the Thomas & Mack Center and the Cox Pavilion, hasn’t committed to bringing a team to Las Vegas, but several interested parties have suggested Las Vegas as the possible home of a new franchise.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver had said multiple times that the league was waiting to get new collective bargaining and media rights agreements in place before expansion was seriously considered.
With those agreements now finalized, Silver, who has said Las Vegas is an attractive market for a potential team, will soon begin to look at expansion before the end of the year. Despite the enormous interest from Las Vegas and other markets, such as Seattle, Silver said expanding the league isn’t a given.
Other Las Vegas arenas and proposed arenas could be in the running for hosting a team.
Oak View Group has disclosed plans to build a $10 billion, 20,000-seat state-of-the-art NBA-ready arena with a resort at Las Vegas Boulevard and Blue Diamond Road, near the planned Brightline West high-speed rail station. But those plans may have hit a snag because of a pricing dispute with landowner Blue Diamond Acquisitions on the 25-acre site, disclosed in September.
Oak View Group has not publicly updated its plans, and reports circulated in September said the company was considering land near the Rio hotel-casino.
MGM Resorts International, a partner in the ownership of T-Mobile Arena where the National Hockey League’s Golden Knights play, has expressed interest in hosting an NBA team there. Several arenas in the United States host NBA basketball and NHL hockey in the same venue.
Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.
