Ex-NBA player faces deadline for long-stalled project plans on Strip

The deadline for ex-NBA player Jackie Robinson to keep his long-stalled arena and hotel project plans alive is looming later this month.

Clark County commissioners on Wednesday introduced an ordinance to consider a development agreement with Robinson, whose north Strip project has been on the drawing board for several years and consists of a massive hole in the ground.

The agreement is contingent upon a bond and a so-called performance agreement being on the commission’s April 21 agenda, but if the latter two items are not ready for that hearing, Robinson’s project application “will be considered expired,” Nancy Amundsen, the county’s director of comprehensive planning, told commissioners Wednesday.

“Everybody hear that?” replied Commissioner Tick Segerblom, whose district includes the 27-acre project site between Sahara Las Vegas and the unfinished former Fontainebleau.

‘Fish or cut bait’

Amundsen told the Review-Journal on Wednesday that county officials had agreed on the performance agreement’s language, and she indicated officials were told the agreement and the bond would be finalized next week.

Amundsen said the county did not require such items before the real estate crash of a decade or so ago, which left Southern Nevada littered with abandoned, partially built projects, including a few giant holes in the ground in the southwest valley where high-rise condos were supposed to be built.

Performance agreements, also known as decommission plans, outline how a property would be restored or secured if construction stops before the project is finished. As Amundsen noted, the county could have tapped bonds to fill the craters that were left behind after the mid-2000s real estate bubble burst.

County commissioners gave Robinson an ultimatum in October when they voted to give him until April to complete the bond and the performance and development agreements.

At the hearing, Segerblom said that it was “time to fish or cut bait,” that the panel was giving Robinson his “last six months,” and that if the developer didn’t file the paperwork in time, “it’s over.”

Robinson, 65, did not return a call Thursday seeking comment.

‘1,000 percent’ committed

A former UNLV basketball player, Robinson announced plans in late 2013 to build a 22,000-seat arena with a retractable roof and a 500-room luxury hotel. At the time, he said the project, on the former Wet ‘n’ Wild water park site, would cost $1.3 billion and was slated to open in late 2016.

County commissioners approved project plans in August 2014, and Robinson held a ceremonial groundbreaking that October. The property largely stayed quiet until March 2017, when crews started excavating the site.

County commissioners approved a big expansion of Robinson’s plans in October 2017, but the project has shown no further progress beyond the initial excavation.

Plans have called for an arena, 44-story and 63-story nongaming hotels, conference space, restaurants, a bowling alley, a movie theater and more.

Robinson, who has said the project would cost nearly $3 billion, told county commissioners in 2019 how he would pay for the stalled development. He described a complex plan involving money in Qatar, people in Zurich, central banks in Europe and the U.S., lines of credit, funds moving from one bank to another, and state of Nevada revenue bonds.

He also told the Review-Journal in 2019 that he was in the “final stages” of his loan, that he had the ability to “complete the project in full,” and that he was “1,000 percent” committed to building it.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter.