Cost of NBA-ready arena project in Las Vegas balloons to $10 billion

The Oak View Group, a stadium development and management company, said that its budget for a new arena project for a potential NBA expansion team Las Vegas has grown from $3 billion to $10 billion, according to the Nevada Independent and Front Office Sports.

At a conference for the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, Oak View Group CEO Tim Leiweke told attendees of the changes made to the original plans, which included more acreage for a hospitality and entertainment complex.

Per the Nevada Independent:

His plans for a 20,000-seat arena as part of a $3 billion hotel, gaming and entertainment district near the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Blue Diamond Road have grown substantially.

The arena is now part of a 66-acre planned development, more than two-and-a-half times the size of the original parcel, and the project’s budget has a $10 billion price tag — all privately financed. The arena is the first part of the development that will be completed, which would allow Oak View to potentially attract an NBA expansion franchise.

“We're doing something extraordinary and if we get to the finish line, we will build the largest development in the history of Las Vegas,” Leiweke said.

Leiweke claims that taxpayer funds will not be used in its development, a far cry from the reported $380 million that the state of Nevada plans to put towards a $1.5 billion baseball stadium for the Oakland A's. This would also be in contrast to the $750 million in public funding (via municipal bonds and hotel taxes) used to build Allegiant Stadium for the Las Vegas Raiders, which ended up costing nearly $2 billion in total.

Leiweke could be following in the steps of Bill Foley and his newly crowned Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights. T-Mobile Arena, which opened in 2016, was privately funded by MGM Resorts International and AEG for $375 million. Foley once told CNBC that he was against the idea of using public funds to build the arena, saying “we can better spend that money on firefighters, teachers, and policemen. Let’s have the best of that as opposed to building the big stadium.”

What's interesting is that T-Mobile Arena is well suited to host an NBA team as well as the Golden Knights, similar to several multipurpose arenas in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and other cities. Oak View Group operates one itself, after rebuilding Seattle's KeyArena into the Climate Pledge Arena, which is home to the NHL's Kraken and WNBA's Storm, and was also developed with a new NBA team in mind.