Las Vegas tourism leaders have tabled plans to buy almost 5 acres of property for their planned multibillion-dollar business district.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority's board was scheduled to vote today on spending up to $19 million for 4.8 acres of mostly vacant property on Convention Center Drive just east of the Strip.
But while working on the deal, LVCVA officials found some “constraints” on the deed that did not fit with their expected use of the property, spokeswoman Heidi Hayes said.
She could not confirm what the constraints were but said they made the property “not viable” for the tourism bureau, so the group backed off from buying the sites.
When the board meeting started this morning, LVCVA chief executive Rossi Ralenkotter asked the board to withdraw the sale from the agenda, and members did, without discussion, Hayes said.
LVCVA spokeswoman Dawn Christensen said Wednesday that the deal requires further study and could come back up for a vote at a later date.
The property targeted by the LVCVA included Vegas Indoor Skydiving and a sprawling parking lot next door. County records indicate that Tarsadia Investments, of Newport Beach, Calif., owns the properties.
The land would have been included in the LVCVA’s Las Vegas Global Business District, a $2.5 billion, seven- to 10-year project that would add almost 1 million square feet of exhibit and meeting space, as well as a transit hub, to the Las Vegas Convention Center compound.
LVCVA officials unveiled the project in February 2013, and since then, they’ve acquired 18.7 acres of property in the area for $49 million, according to Hayes.
The LVCVA, funded mostly by hotel room taxes, is Southern Nevada’s chief tourism promoter. It also operates the 3.2-million-square-foot Las Vegas Convention Center and the 483,000-square-foot Cashman Center near downtown.