Allegiant Stadium, at $2.02B, gets final certificate of occupancy

Allegiant Stadium is ready to host its first event Monday as it received its final certificate of occupancy from Clark County.

The stadium received its unconditional permit Aug. 31, just one-month after work on the stadium was substantially completed and a temporary certificate of occupancy was issued, Don Webb, chief operating officer of the Raiders construction subsidiary, said Thursday during the Las Vegas Stadium Authority board meeting.

The stadium’s budget increased to $2.02 billion after some third-party activations came online. That number is expected to grow about $10 million more, as $36.6 million of a planned $47.4 million of third-party work has been completed, Webb said.

Of the budget, $131 million is left to be disbursed to vendors, but that doesn’t mean that amount of work is left to be done, Webb said.

Crews have until Nov. 31 to finish punch-list items in-and-around the stadium, with 412 items left to complete. Over 300 of those are tied to fine-tuning seats in the 65,000-seat facility, Webb said.

“That certainly does not mean that we have $131 million worth of work left to complete,” Webb said. “As a matter of fact, the total value of the remaining punch list… is less than $250,000. There’s lag from finishing the work in the field, gathering the information, submitting an invoice for that completed work and then finally processing and releasing payment. This normal lag, along with the unreleased contractor retention, which we are holding, represent almost all of this remaining $131 million. ”

Agreement extensions

Also Thursday, the authority approved a number of amendments to stadium agreements that lengthened them all by one year.

The extensions were requested by the Raiders to give fans the benefit of a full 30 years since fans won’t be allowed to attend games at the new stadium this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Raiders’ non-relocation clause, the Raiders’ stadium lease and team-use agreements as well as UNLV’s joint-use agreement were all extended to 31 years.

“They (the Raiders) wanted to make sure that the city of Las Vegas, the entire state of Nevada, that the commitment in writing that allowed the community and the state to get the entire 30-year benefit of the agreement that we reached,” said Steve Hill, stadium authority board chairman. “It’s sort of the same thing that would have happened if Don (Webb) wasn’t successful in getting the stadium built and made available this year… that 30-year commitment would have started with next season.”

Room tax

Room tax revenue earmarked for the stadium continued to lag during the coronavirus pandemic, with $1.2 million generated in July, down 71.5 percent from the same month last year.

“Obviously revenues have been dramatically effected by the COVID-19 crisis and although we’ve seen some improvement in the most recent data, obviously there’s a long way to go,” said Jeremy Aguero of Applied Analysis, which serves as the stadium authority’s support staff.

For fiscal year 2020, room tax revenue totaled $36.9 million, a 25 percent dip over fiscal year 2019’s total.

Despite that decrease, 2020’s total was sufficient to cover debt service for the year of $34 million. An estimated $722,433 will be added to the debt service reserve for fiscal year 2020 from the leftover room tax, with $1.4 million more being added from the remaining balance of the stadium authority’s FY2020 budget, Aguero said.

The debt service reserve sits at $68.6 million, or 76 percent of the $90.2 million set to be collected in the fund. The reserve fund was set up to cover two full years of bond payments tied to the public contribution of $750 million, generated by way of a 0.88 percent room tax on hotel rooms in Clark County.

“Staff is coordinating with the (Clark) county and bond counsel on revenue and cash flow projections in anticipation of potentially utilizing the debt reserve fund for fiscal year 2021,” Aguero said.

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on Twitter.