MGM and AEG will finance a new Las Vegas arena "with equity contributions, plus third-party financing," and "no public dollars are being sought," according to Alan Snel of the LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL. Icon Venue Group "coordinated the architect selection process" that chose Populous to design the arena. Icon President & CEO Tim Romani said, "This project is exciting. We’ve been working with AEG on developing an arena in Las Vegas since 2007." He added that while the facility "does not have an NBA or NHL team lined up as an anchor tenant, the building will be designed and constructed to accommodate a big-league basketball or hockey franchise." Romani said the new venue's "model is the Sprint Center” in K.C. He added, “We want to make it a great event center. Las Vegas is the event capital of the world and we want to make sure it will be optimal in handling any kind of event.” Romani said that the site is 12 acres, "with the arena expected to cover 4.5 to 5 acres." He added that the $350M project "will include hard construction costs of about" $225-250M, and is "expected to take 22 months to build, with the first arena act to open" in May '16 (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, 6/19).
