Saturday, May 3, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
THE CONCESSION speech may be typed and ready, but it has yet to be delivered.
Many feel it's overdue, that it's obvious the downtown Las Vegas domed stadium isn't going to be built and that developmental manager Paul Tanner may as well come out and say so.
Tanner, however, continues to balk. He isn't quite ready to quit.
It's May now and the groundbreaking ceremony for the proposed stadium was to have been held by March. While delays are not uncommon for projects with an estimated $750 million price tag, the domed stadium concept appears to have ground to a halt.
Drive by the proposed site today and there's little but stillness in the air. Surveyors, excavators and contractors are nowhere to be found, replaced by a simple realtor's sign that offers only a phone number to those interested in purchasing land in the area.
This is not how it was supposed to go, particularly after Tanner's Nevada Stadium Partners purchased 61.5 acres at Parkway Center. But the luster is off that November transaction, as NSP hit what it considered an unexpected snag in arranging its financing and, as a result, has relinquished its hold on the property.
There's a which-came-first question here that no one wants to answer.
Perhaps as a result of the financing problems, NSP -- which had about 40 local investors as part of its original lineup -- appears to have lost some of its affluent members. Or it may be the other way around in that the local investors may have had second thoughts and dropped out of NSP, which led to the financing roadblock.
Either way, NSP has lost some of its financial clout.
There's also this chicken-or-the-egg question to consider: Has the National Football League played a quiet yet significant role in preventing the domed stadium from going up?
When the stadium plans were revealed, Tanner didn't stand at the podium and pontificate on the importance of having an NFL team for his 110,000-seat facility, yet he privately acknowledged the need for a significant tenant and that an NFL team would be it.
"Put it this way," he said, "I suspect we will (have an NFL franchise). We've already had four NFL teams that have talked to us about moving here."
Failing that, he felt he could lasso the Super Bowl on at least something of a regular basis, if not convince the NFL to permanently move the game here.
He spoke with a confidence that was impossible to ignore. He was creditable. A man of money, power and business acumen, he wasn't intimidated by the National Football League or by skeptics who felt the sport would never have a serious presence in a gambling mecca like Las Vegas.
Yet it's possible the NFL has since told NSP "no way" and that's why the local investors jumped off, and that in turn is why the financing fell apart.
(Tanner, who has always come across as forthright and willing to answer tough questions, was unavailable at his Dallas business office Friday as this was being written. However, a week earlier he indicated the stadium project was still on, albeit delayed.)
With the downtown stadium at least on hold and perhaps off the board altogether, there are business and sports repercussions.
For the city of Las Vegas, it must now consider dusting off proposed stadium plans that were drawn up two years ago but were subsequently shelved when Tanner opportunistically stepped forward with plans of his own. Remember the Russell Road site and stadium proposal?
Likewise, with the domed stadium in jeopardy, UNLV is back looking for money to expand the Thomas & Mack Center and renovate Sam Boyd Stadium. While the domed stadium was likely to attract the annual National Finals Rodeo, its failure to be built puts the pressure back on UNLV to increase the seating of the T&M (or run the risk of losing the rodeo to another site or city). And with UNLV having made commitments to the Western Athletic Conference to host its annual football championship game, as well as a bowl game, Boyd Stadium has to be upgraded now that the option of moving those games to a domed stadium is no longer on the table.
Tanner's stadium may not have been essential to the community yet it would have alleviated a few needs, added to the city's convention portfolio and perhaps brought professional football to the valley. Its wish list had a nice mix to it.
And it was to have been the grandest, most extravagant stadium ever built.
So if this is but a temporary delay, attribute it to growing pains. But if the proposed stadium has met its demise, Tanner may as well go ahead and deliver that concession speech.
It's the same one his doubters wrote for him the day he emerged with what they called a crazy idea whose time had not yet come.
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