Las Vegas Convention Center expansion to shift 50 feet

The planned 600,000-square-foot exhibition hall footprint will shift about 50 feet west, thanks to a land deal finalized Tuesday by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Steve Hill, president and chief operating officer of the LVCVA, said the design of the building wouldn’t change with the minor shift.

“It barely fits (under the existing plan),” Hill said after the meeting. “We had a pinch point next to the Springhill Suites and the southern end of the exhibition hall….We just kind of picked the plans up, shifted it 50 feet or so to the west and then put it back down.”

The board had one other approval related to the $1.4 billion convention center expansion and renovation project to head off a potential cost increase.

At the recommendation of the LVCVA’s pre-construction services consultant, Turner Martin Harris, the board authorized spending up to $40 million for a structural steel package. Usually the authorization would come after review by the Las Vegas Convention Center District Committee and the Oversight Panel for Convention Facilities in Clark County, but a recommendation went straight to the board to expedite getting the steel.

Construction managers will seek competitive bids from U.S.-based steel mills in mid- to late July for materials needed to build the exhibition hall and meeting rooms.

LVCVA CEO Rossi Ralenkotter on Tuesday recalled how he’s been trying to buy Irwin Kishner’s old Somerset Gardens and Shopping Center properties for years, making his last run at the property in 2014.

The heirs of Kishner, who died at 84 last year, recently agreed to the sale of the four parcels totalling 8.3 acres for $49.8 million.

The sales agreement says Kishner and his uncle, Herman Kishner, would have a conference room in the new hall named for them.

“We made a fabulous investment today,” Hill said.

The LVCVA continually assesses purchases of land adjacent to the Convention Center campus. To pay for the most recent land acquisition, the board approved a bond sales resolution that will be unrelated to the construction bond issue guaranteed by the 0.5-percentage-point room tax increase authorized by the Legislature in 2016.

The bond issue is expected to occur around August.

The board also authorized $1 million for transaction costs, the relocation of an estimated 80 tenants in the 120-unit apartment and two businesses in the shopping center, and testing and removal of materials once the buildings are demolished.

Tenants have 90-day cancellation clauses on their leases and the LVCVA intends to bulldoze the buildings as soon as possible.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.