The latest

By Colton Lochhead   Las Vegas Review Journal 02/28/2023 - 6:01 am

• It’s not even March yet, but the mountains  that feed the Colorado River already have seen more snow this winter  than they normally would through an entire snow season.
• And with some snow in the forecast, there’s still more time for that snowpack to grow.
• “For the West in general, this year has been  really great,” said Paul Miller, service coordination hydrologist with  the National Weather Service’s Colorado Basin River Forecast Center in  Salt Lake City. “This is probably the wettest year we’ve had since  2011.”
• The snowpack in the Upper Colorado River Basin was at 133 percent of the 30-year historical average as of Monday, and  sits at 101 percent of what the basin has received on average through an  entire season.
• The basin’s snowpack typically peaks around  the first week of April — about five to six weeks from now —and then  begins to melt and flow downstream into Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona  border through July.

By Eli Segall   Las Vegas Review Journal 03/22/2023 06:18 am 

• A Reno developer aims to start construction  on a sprawling industrial park outside Las Vegas next year — a project  that would topple a shuttered hotel-casino.
• Tolles Development Co. is looking to break  ground on the first phase of a warehouse and distribution complex off  Interstate 15 in Jean — a remote outpost some 25 miles south of the  Strip — in the second quarter of 2023, partner Cory Hunt told the  Review-Journal.
• The first building would span more than 455,000 square feet, and the firm hopes to complete it in early 2024, Hunt said.
• Tolles is also pushing ahead with permits  and designs for the industrial park’s second building, which would span  just over 1 million square feet, he said.
• Hunt pointed to the project site’s proximity to Southern California and distance from the Las Vegas  Valley’s traffic congestion. As he described it, truckers leaving the  ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach can drop off products in Jean and  get back in a one-day round trip, without having to stay overnight in  compliance with federal work-hours guidelines for truck drivers.

• By Mick Akers   Las Vegas Review Journal 11/22/2022 7:36 am

The 2028 NCAA Men’s Final Four will be hosted at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, the NCAA announced Tuesday.

Slated to take place April 1 and 3, 2028, it  will will mark the first time Las Vegas hosts the annual end to the  college basketball season.

“We are excited to bring the NCAA’s premier  championship to Las Vegas, a city that for a number of years has hosted  numerous championships from several member conferences,” said Chris  Reynolds, athletics director at Bradley and the chair of the committee.  “The feedback from leagues, the fans of their teams and the media  covering the events staged there has been overwhelmingly positive, and  we are confident we’ll get the same reviews when the Men’s Final Four is  played at Allegiant Stadium.”

The NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball  Committee on Tuesday selected the host sites for the Final Four between  2027 and 2030, with Detroit receiving the 2027 event, Indianapolis being  awarded it in 2029 and Arlington, Texas grabbing the 2030 version.

By Mick Akers  Las Vegas Review Journal 11/21/2022 02:35 pm 

• Thanksgiving weekend is expected to be one of the busiest for travelers in the last 20 years, according to AAA Nevada.
• About 55 million people are expected to  travel nationwide for Thanksgiving, a 1.5 percent increase over 2021 and  98 percent of pre-pandemic travel volume, according to AAA.
• Of those, nearly 49 million people are  slated to travel by car, with 4.5 million estimated to take to the air.  That number represents an 8 percent increase in air travelers over 2021,  AAA reported.
• The organization did not have a Las Vegas Valley specific estimated traveler count.
• “The upcoming holiday is projected to be one  of the busiest for travel in the past two decades,” Brian Ng, senior  vice president of membership and travel marketing for AAA Nevada, said  in a statement. “Planning ahead will go a long way toward alleviating  holiday travel stress.”
• Part of that planning includes choosing the best times to hit the road before and after the busy holiday weekend.
• Tuesday and Wednesday will see above-average  traffic on Interstate 15 southbound near the Nevada-California border,  with Thanksgiving Day expected to see light traffic on the stretch,  according to the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada.

By Richard N. Velotta  Las Vegas Review Journal 5/23/2022 7:05 pm

• The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors  Authority board of directors on Monday approved a $398 million budget  for the city marketing organization’s 2022-23 fiscal year.
• Clark County Commissioner Jim Gibson, who  serves as secretary on the board, underscored the importance of the  marketing budget to Las Vegas’ success as a destination.
• “What this budget reflects is the reality  that we need to continue to fight to hold our place and to advance  ourselves,” he said. “I think that the things that are the priority  listed in the budget expenditures are appropriate. We need to remember  that we’re not the only destination that is fighting hard to come back  and exceed prior performances. I think this budget manages us in a way  that does just that for ourselves.”
• The board’s vote came during a special  telephonic meeting that lasted just 11 minutes. No one from the public  raised any objection to the spending plan during a hearing before the  approval.
• LVCVA Chief Financial Officer Ed Finger  detailed the major expenditures in a brief presentation prior to the  vote. The budget, he said, represents “a return to normal-sized  financial activity for the LVCVA.” A $273 million operations budget will  include $94 million for advertising and $27.5 million to sponsor  special events that usually draw hundreds of thousands of people to the  city.

By Richard N. Velotta  Las Vegas Review Journal 5/24/2022 10:41 pm 

• More than 1,000 Madison Square Garden  Entertainment Corp. employees and construction workers gathered Tuesday  at the MSG Sphere at The Venetian to watch the last piece of the  gigantic three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle fit into place at the  366-foot-tall entertainment venue.
• Crews hoisted an evergreen and an American  flag to the $1.9 billion building’s summit while the crowd cheered the  milestone event.
• The Sphere, scheduled to open in late 2023,  is expected to be the most innovative entertainment venue ever built  when completed with wrap-around digital screens inside and out. The  exterior screen, fully programmable, will have the capability of  projecting imagery from a preset program or a live broadcast from  something going on inside the facility.
• Media members were taken on a three-stop  tour of the building Tuesday but weren’t invited to the topping-off  ceremony, a traditional event that occurs when the last and highest  portion of a construction project is completed.
• Next up for construction crews: bolting the  high-definition screens to the interior and exterior of the building.  The screen on the exosphere will take 10 to 12 months to install,  starting from the peak of the dome and working downward. Several  70-by-60-foot parallelogram-shaped panels with LED lighting will be  installed atop the exosphere.
• During the tour, Nick Tomasino, senior vice  president of construction for MSG Entertainment, and Lucas Watson,  president of the MSG Sphere, pointed out venue features from a temporary  platform between the sixth and seventh levels of the building and from  the massive stage at ground level, which has the flexibility to be  widened.