The Mandalay Bay casino could become the new end-stop for the Las Vegas monorail after the Clark County Commission okayed a funding measure May 2.
The commission voted to let the nonprofit Las Vegas Monorail Company to transfer money from its $6 million investment earnings account to extend the monorail line to Mandalay Bay.
The monorail currently runs nearly four miles along the east side of the Las Vegas Strip, from the MGM Grand north past the Las Vegas Convention center to just south of Sahara Avenue. Its current line connects 26,000 hotel rooms, and the estimated $100 million extension would connect another 11,000 rooms.
MGM Resorts International has a separate, free monorail connecting the Mandalay Bay to its other properties on the west side of the Las Vegas Strip. Whether or not that would be incorporated into the extension isn’t known.
The Las Vegas Monorail Company began operating in 2004, but ran into financial trouble during the Great Recession. It spent two years in bankruptcy, and emerged with 98 percent less debt at $13 million and kept its nonprofit status.
The investment earnings account was created to pay for its costs if it folded. With the local economy stronger and more diversified, the commission agreed monorail has proven its value.
The Las Vegas Monorail says the account earns nearly $2 million per year, and that money would be used to obtain a design and maximum cost for the proposed line extension. Then the company intends to pursue financing via bond markets.
In other business, the commission indicated increased support for up to 18 proposed infrastructure improvements, including building an elevated expressway connecting McCarran International Airport and the Las Vegas Strip.
The 18 projects would require some $427 million in financing, with the proposed elevated expressway costing an estimated $200 million. The money likely would be repaid via hotel room taxes.
While the expansion would connect some 35,000 hotel rooms along the Las Vegas Strip, it also would connect the city’s largest convention centers.
The Mandalay Bay and Las Vegas Sands each in recent years completed expansions of their respective convention centers. The Las Vegas Convention Center is undergoing a $10-year, $2.3 billion expansion and remodeling, including adding an outdoor exhibition area and expanding its indoor exhibition space.
The MGM Grand also has a convention center, and several other properties have sizeable convention centers, and an efficient monorail line makes it possible to host large, multi-venue conventions, exhibitions, and tradeshows.
Las Vegas is the world’s top tradeshow destination, as determined by the Trade Show News Network and based on total square footage of events hosted every year. The city has owned the top spot the past 22 years.
Several of the world’s largest conventions are held in Las Vegas, including the annual International CES consumer electronics show, which packs the Las Vegas Strip with 170,000 attendees every year. It’s held at multiple convention centers and has several related events that run in concurrently.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) estimates large-scale events drawing at least 100,000 attendees result in rooms rates that are three to five times greater than normally charged at hotels on the Las Vegas Strip.
Conventions and similar large events also help hotels on the Las Vegas Strip to maintain an about 90 percent occupancy rate throughout the year, and the LVCVA estimates they generate more than $6.7 billion in economic activity.
