Thursday, Jan. 16, 2020 | 6:20 p.m.
A defiant Don Webb pushed back Thursday against the notion that a delay in the placement of Allegiant Stadium’s roof will hamper the project’s timeline.
“Because Allegiant Stadium is an enormous, high-profile project with unprecedented public scrutiny, any construction hiccup becomes exaggerated throughout social media and the press,” said Webb, COO of the Las Vegas Stadium Events Co. “The unfortunate newspaper headlines earlier this week, based upon an excerpt from a report from the stadium authority’s construction representative, is an example.”
The comment, made at a meeting of the Las Vegas Stadium Authority, was in reference to news stories this week citing a December report from Grand Canyon Development Partners, a firm serving as an independent monitor on the construction of the $2 billion future home to the Raiders and UNLV football.
Grand Canyon expressed concern that the stadium project — substantial completion is scheduled for July 31 with the first scheduled event on Aug. 16 — timeline could be pushed back because the placement of the cable net system required to support the 65,000-seat stadium’s trademark translucent roof ran into a snag.
The problem, Webb said, was that a connection to a canopy being used had been “overstressed,” which caused a “handful” of bolts to break late last year.
“We’re talking about literally a handful of bolts in a structure that has more than a half-million similar bolts,” Webb said. “Nobody was injured and the structure was never in jeopardy of failure.”
Webb said representatives from five different engineering firms and Clark County building officials studied the broken bolts and came up with a plan to make sure work could continue safely on the roof's installation. Webb added that work on the cable net system resumed last week and the placement of the roof is now expected to be complete in May.
That’s about a month later than what was originally planned, but Webb said the delay would have no impact on the stadium’s targeted completion date.
Grand Canyon project executive Tony Cosentino said he’s confident that the cable net issue has been resolved and that the firm is “comfortable” that the stadium will be finished by July 31.
Also in the Grand Canyon report was a mention of the possibility that rain could damage certain aspects of the stadium until the roof is placed. Webb downplayed any possibility of significant damage, citing the wet month of December and the fact that rain caused only minimal damage in the grand scope of the project then.
“According to the National Weather Service, December (in Las Vegas) saw 200% of the normal rainfall,” Webb said. “The total damage that was seen was less than $100,000 and resulted in no schedule delay. So, the rainiest month of the year, with twice the normal rainfall, was hardly a showstopper.”
Counting progress since the end of December, Webb said the stadium project is now close to 80% complete and remains on budget. Through last month, more than $1.3 billion had been spent on the stadium project, according to figures presented at Thursday’s meeting. The stadium’s glass walls are expected to be completely installed sometime in March.
“We’re going to finish on time,” Webb said. “On a $2 billion project, $100,000 is a rounding error.”
Raiders President Marc Badain reported that personal seat license sales — which accounts for close to 90% of all stadium seating — have sold out. Sales have raised more than $478 million for the stadium project, well ahead of initial targets.
Badain said that about 60% of PSLs, which were required to obtain season tickets and cost from $500 to $75,000, were purchased by Nevadans. Most of remaining 40% were purchased by residents of California, where the former Oakland Raiders (and Los Angeles Raiders before that) have its biggest backing. Neighboring states like Arizona, Utah and New Mexico were also represented.
