Southwest Airlines has opposed "building a domed football stadium on a 42-acre site" near Las Vegas' McCarran Int'l Airport that could potentially house the Raiders, according to Richard Velotta of the LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL. With that site, known as Trop 42, "off the table, an 11-member committee studying how to finance the project is expected to reconsider a site just northwest of the Thomas & Mack Center that was under consideration when UNLV was looking at stadium options" in '12. Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee Chair Steve Hill said that he "hasn't ruled out the Trop 42 side from consideration." But a letter from Clark County (Nev.) Commission Chair Steve Sisolak verified what many had suspected -- that a "stadium on that site could impact operations" at the airport. Hill said, "It's not my decision, but at this point, I would say it's highly unlikely that the Tropicana site would work." Velotta noted Southwest is McCarran's "busiest commercial carrier." The committee plans to reconsider a site from a UNLV "campus master plan." Majestic Reality in '13 "proposed a smaller stadium plan, known as UNLV Now." The new stadium project is a "public-private partnership," with private funding provided by Las Vegas Sands Corp., Majestic and the Raiders. A Sands rep said that the "development partners have no preference about where the stadium would be built." In addition to the UNLV Now site, other locations "under consideration for the stadium" include the site of the recently imploded Riviera hotel; MGM Resorts Int'l Rock in Rio grounds; and Cashman Center. Hill said that he "hopes the developers and the Raiders could work toward narrowing potential locations so that the committee could develop a better estimate of the full cost of the stadium" (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, 7/2).
