Shapiro won’t stop pitching for team

Thursday, Aug. 12, 2004 | 9:19 a.m.

Mike Shapiro, the point man for a group's effort to relocate the Montreal Expos to Las Vegas, will appear today on "Face to Face with Jon Ralston."

The television show is the Sun's daily local issues and affairs program on Las Vegas ONE, Cox channels 1 and 19, and it will be shown at 3:30, 5:30, 8 and 10:30 p.m., and Friday at 11 a.m.

Shapiro's flight from San Francisco had been scheduled to land in Las Vegas by 9 a.m. today, with the taping of the 30-minute show set to begin at 9:30.

"No matter what you're working on or where you're working on a project, I think it's good that you make yourself available to answer questions," Shapiro said. "People have real legitimate concerns. They want to be enlightened on certain concerns, whether it's a ballpark or an apartment building.

"Answering questions is part of the process, a legitimate part of the process."

As a guest on Mayor Oscar Goodman's weekly call-in television show last week, Shapiro fielded few questions.

"I think that's the nature of the show with the mayor," Shapiro said. "People had concerns with the mayor that didn't have to do with the baseball project. That was the forum. The mayor had me on to introduce me to folks.

"If they didn't want to ask me questions, that's their prerogative. Talking to the mayor was more important to them than talking with me."

For more than a year, Shapiro has been the most visible and vocal member of Las Vegas Sports and Entertainment (LVSE) LLC in its goal to bring the first of the four major sports to the city.

Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia have garnered an abundance of national attention this summer as the perceived leaders in the Expos' relocation saga.

However, Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig has delayed a final decision on the process numerous times. He has vowed to move the franchise for next season, and Shapiro believes that will be announced by the end of this season.

"I do feel confident that they will make that decision," Shapiro said. "You'll have to start retro-fitting a temporary facility somewhere and begin negotiating with an ownership group. Time gets pretty compressed to be ready to go for the '05 season.

"Those time limitations are incumbent (on a timely decision), (but) it's coming to fruition."

LVSE proposes to build a $420 million, retractable-roof stadium, entirely with private financing, on 15 acres behind Bally's and Paris Las Vegas. Caesars Entertainment Inc., which owns that land, would act only as a landlord.

Shapiro has worked closely with HOK Sport, the well-known Kansas City, Mo.-based architectural firm, on the the glass-and-steel design of the structure, which he has called "iconic."

"We've made it easy with our proposal because ours is a private model," Shapiro said. "Public models are a lot more complicated and a lot harder to sort through -- what's real and what's feasible?

"That's not an easy process, and I have a great deal of sympathy and understanding of why this process is taking a long time."

Selig has said that his first priority is to select a city with a viable stadium plan, with hopes that the Expos, or whatever they might be renamed, play their first game in the park in 2007.

Manhattan-based businessmen Robert Blumenfeld (Pembroke Development Corp.) and Peter M. Hoffman (Merrill Lynch) are the key LVSE executives who are coordinating the stadium's financing.

MLB, whose 29 other owners bought the Expos for $120 million before the 2002 season, will then form an ownership group.

Randy Vataha, of Game Plan LLC in Boston, has been hired by LVSE to assemble potential Las Vegas owners, and Vataha has told the Sun that plenty of capable financiers are interested in the project.

"What (MLB) wants is a very thorough analysis. In our proposal, I'm confident they have an understanding that our proposal is viable," Shapiro said. "I'm not sure whether (groups representing) other cities can say that. Our proposal stands on its merits."