LAS VEGAS (AP) - The Oakland Raiders said Thursday they have identified thousands of parking spots around their stadium site in Las Vegas that could allow them to meet local government requirements.
Raiders president Marc Badain told the public entity overseeing the $1.9 billion project that the team has signed agreements and is finalizing others for 27,000 parking spots in multiple locations within 1.25 miles (2 km) of the stadium. He said the team has identified over 100,000 spots within a 3-mile (4.8-km) radius, some of which would require shuttling fans.
“You’ve heard me say it before, but the Raiders take it as serious as anyone,” Badain said of the site’s parking options. “We do it now in our current stadium. We spend a lot of time and a lot of resources analyzing it and have for the last 20 years.”
Clark County officials have given the team a September deadline to find a solution for the insufficient number of parking spots at their site west of the Las Vegas Strip. The stadium is required to have 16,250 parking spots according to county regulations, but the site only fits about 3,000.
Badain declined to provide specific details about the parking spots, but said some nearby property owners are interested in selling or leasing their land, as well as in partnering with the team.
Las Vegas Stadium Authority Board chairman Steve Hill said after the public meeting the team is considering using existing parking garages at casino-resorts and spots available at other area businesses.
“The Raiders have done a lot of work to identify really all of the available parking in the area and some of it is in partnership with the hotel-casinos, some of that is vacant land that could be used for parking and need to be paved,” he said.
Badain said the team’s current stadium has about 3,000 active tailgaters and approximately 9,500 spots.
The Raiders are planning to kick off the 2020 season at the new 65,000-seat domed venue. Their training facility will be located in nearby Henderson, Nevada.
Guests of hotels and other lodging facilities in the Las Vegas area are paying a room tax that will bring in $750 million for the project. The Raiders and the NFL are expected to contribute $500 million to the project, while the team has also secured a bank loan.
The board on Thursday gave conditional approval to several documents that the NFL will review at meetings later this month.
An agreement that ties the Raiders to the stadium in Las Vegas for three decades and another one that sets out the terms of their lease were among the documents discussed.
The board plans to give final approval to the agreements by the end of the month.
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