City Council approves talks to redevelop Cashman Center
Cashman Center might be turned into a medical campus with a children’s hospital in a $1 billion-plus overhaul, as envisioned by the developer seeking to transform the site.
The Las Vegas City Council on Wednesday approved entering into talks with Tru Development to study a potential mixed-use medical campus at the 50-acre property. The six-month negotiation agreement has an option for a six-month extension.
Located at Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue, the city-owned Cashman site is home to a convention center and a stadium where the Las Vegas Lights soccer team plays.
This isn’t the first time officials have looked to redevelop the Cashman complex, which was previously eyed for a new stadium and was even offered for free at one point to Amazon after the e-commerce giant launched a bidding war for a new corporate campus.
This time around, a local developer is looking to build a health care hub that he says is needed in Southern Nevada.
Tru Development founder Tim Deters told the Review-Journal on Wednesday that local officials have discussed the idea of a medical research campus for years, but, unlike in other cities, it hasn’t materialized in Las Vegas.
“We don’t have that here,” said Deters, who figures there could be a “statewide impact with this type of development project.”
As outlined in the exclusive negotiation agreement approved Wednesday, plans call for the campus’ “project anchor” to be a medical facility operated by a nonprofit called the Las Vegas Children’s Hospital Foundation.
The campus, as currently contemplated, also would include medical office space, retail, multifamily residential units, and potentially a nongaming hotel, Deters said, adding he expects the total project to cost around $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion.
Cashman Center boasts 98,100 square feet of exhibit space, a 10,000-seat baseball and soccer stadium, a 1,922-seat theater, and 14 meeting rooms, according to the city’s website.
Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman told reporters Wednesday that officials have explored different ideas for Cashman, including trying to lure a Major League Soccer franchise.
In June 2019, the City Council approved launching talks with The Renaissance Companies on a potential mixed-use project at Cashman that would feature a new stadium for an MLS expansion team. The plans never materialized.
Before that, in a fall 2017 proposal, officials in Southern Nevada offered five big sites around the Las Vegas Valley for Amazon’s “HQ2” project. One option was Las Vegas city-owned property that encompassed the Cashman site.
Amazon ultimately passed on Southern Nevada.
The latest envisioned overhaul at Cashman would not start anytime soon. Deters said that he’s looking at a two-year preconstruction period and that he couldn’t provide a build-out timeline, adding there would be multiple phases.
He also said that as he currently sees it, Cashman’s convention center and stadium would be demolished.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter. Review-Journal staff writer Ricardo Torres-Cortez contributed to this report.