Pair of teams to call arena home

Diana Sahagun

Thursday, Jan. 17, 2002 | 9:55 a.m.

A proposed 7,500-seat downtown arena will be home to a pair of sports teams, developers are expected to announce today.

During Mayor Oscar Goodman's weekly press conference today, Idaho developer Larry Leasure and Joe Briglia, who operates SMG Corp., were expected to make public letters of intent from the West Coast Hockey League for the "Las Vegas Wranglers " and the Community College of Southern Nevada men's and women's basketball teams to call the arena home.

Sources close to the negotiations said the hockey team would be a new expansion team owned by Charles Davenport. Davenport owns the Fresno Falcons, the sources said.

Although the mayor has proclaimed Las Vegas a "major-league city," developers say the minor-league and college teams will draw Las Vegas Valley residents and businesses willing to pay up to $50,000 per year for an executive suite overlooking the floor.

Leasure traveled from Boise, Idaho, to Las Vegas Wednesday to make his first public presentation to the council for the proposed arena at the corner of Stewart Avenue and Main Street.

The 3-acre parcel is owned by Boyd Gaming Corp. Company President Don Snyder estimated a deal with Leasure to build the arena on the site would be finalized within 30 days.

Boyd Gaming will turn the parcel over to a recently formed nonprofit corporation -- of which Goodman, Snyder and Fremont Street Experience President Mark Paris are members -- in return for the elimination of a commitment to build a parking garage on the site.

The arena is expected to cost between $50 million and $60 million and would be financed through tax-exempt financing and possibly city bonds. The arena will not cost taxpayers, Snyder said.

Leasure said once the agreement with Boyd is finalized, the arena could be under construction by this summer, with the goal of fielding a hockey team by fall 2003.

Leasure developed the Bank of America Centre in Boise, which houses the Idaho Steelheads minor-league hockey team, other sporting events and trade shows. The project would serve as the prototype for the Las Vegas arena.

He said the Boise arena has succeeded because it draws people downtown. Once there they tend to patronize shops and restaurants on the way to the game. During the first year after the arena was built in Boise, 35 new restaurants and bars opened near the facility, he said.

At the Las Vegas site, just as in Boise, there isn't enough room on the 3-acre parcel for adequate parking. As in Boise, fans will have to park downtown, blocks from the arena, and might stop and visit businesses on the way to the game, he said.

"This will be a downtown redevelopment project that will bring in a lot of activity around the facility," Leasure said.

The arena will have 40 executive suites, including a sports bar, restaurant and retail space. The Las Vegas Wranglers would be the main tenant, though Leasure emphasized that the arena is "not a hockey rink."

Rather, it will also be home to events such as indoor football, exhibits, trade shows, conventions, tennis, soccer and ice skating. Leasure estimates the arena will draw 750,000 people the first year, by offering affordable ticket prices.

Las Vegas tried and failed once to nurture the Las Vegas Thunder minor-league hockey team, which played at the Thomas & Mack Center. However, Leasure said, the West Coast Hockey League franchise will be successful, because the proposed arena would be more intimate, helping forge a sense of community that has been lacking in Las Vegas.

"It's not very exciting when 5,000 people show up to a 13,000-seat arena," he said.