Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017 | 12:04 p.m.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board of directors signed off today on a contract for the firm designing a 1.4 million-square-foot expansion of the Las Vegas Convention Center.
The expansion is the second part of a $1.5 billion revamp of the facility that was approved last year in a special session of the state Legislature. As part of that session, lawmakers also approved funding an NFL stadium.
The contract is with TVS Design/Design Las Vegas, which beat out two other firms in a design competition earlier this year.
The special session was called because money for both projects is coming, in part, from an increase in the Clark County hotel room tax.
The design contract approval came during the board’s monthly meeting. LVCVA staff announced that a groundbreaking ceremony for the project would be held Jan. 8.
The design includes 600,000 square feet of new exhibition space and should generate an additional $2.1 billion in economic activity during construction, officials said. The LVCVA also said the expansion is expected to have an annual incremental economic impact of $810 million, while attracting more than 600,000 additional visitors a year.
The board approved several other items at the meeting, including:
• Agreeing to sponsor events next year including Big League Weekend and the NASCAR RaceJam Weekend in March, the Downtown Rocks concert series May through September, the Chris Stapleton concert in March and the Luke Bryan concert in April.
• Funding the design of a groundwater remediation system for land the LVCVA owns where a dry cleaner once stood.
• Hiring the firm of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP as a federal lobbying firm.
• Creating a new marketing committee.
• Changing duties and titles of some top LVCVA executives.
