by Ray Smith, Exhibit City News
Exhibitors at Las Vegas Convention Center can put away their umbrellas after the board of directors approved a $29.2 million roof replacement for the North, Central, and South halls, a project that will take about 13 months to complete.
The contract to replace more than 2 million square feet of roofing was awarded to A.W. Farrell & Son following minimal discussion about the bidding process at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority’s Feb. 13 monthly board meeting.
The roofs were coated with a liquid membrane seven years ago, and are now two years past warranty, COO Brian Yost noted. Due to its overall age, a new roofing system is necessary.
“Simply put, when it rains outside, we get wet in portions of the 30-, 40- and 50-year-old buildings,” Yost says.
The contract with A.W. Farrell includes a 25-year roof coating and membrane warranty. Yost told board members that Farrell was the responsive and least expensive bidder.
Other bids were: Commercial Roofers, Las Vegas, $31.5 million; Brazos Urethane, Texas City, Texas, $35.6 million; Eberhard Southwest Roofing, Las Vegas, $36.4 million; and Letner Roofing, Orange, Calif., $43.6 million.
The roofing project was pulled from the $600 million renovation of the Las Vegas Convention Center and brought in-house to allow LVCVA staff to supervise the work, Yost added.
AIR SERVICE UPDATE
Joel Van Over, senior director of Ailevon Pacific Aviation Consulting, presented a report on Las Vegas air service development from June through December, focusing on domestic and international air service data, how the destination benefits from major events such as the Super Bowl and Formula One, and general industry updates.
“How can we turn this into air seats?” he asked the board about the growing attraction of sporting events in Las Vegas.
He pointed to CES as having one of the more impressive statistics, adding more than 40,000 airline seats on 45 flights from international markets during its early January show. The Super Bowl added 100,000 seats.
Overall, 2023 was a record year for air service development, Van Over reports, with Las Vegas adding 34 new markets, including 16 international markets accounting for 9,700 seats a week. The international market has fully recovered from the depths of COVID, he says. Canada is leading the way, while United Kingdom and Asia are still lagging in recovery.
Las Vegas saw the most capacity growth of the largest 20 U.S. metropolitan areas in 2023, and was the sixth-busiest TSA checkpoint, Van Over added.
Convention Authority CEO Steve Hill said Reid International Airport is approaching capacity, though there remains an opportunity to improve load factors to fill airplanes. He was happy to see the return of flights from Manchester, England, the third-largest U.K. market.
SUPER EUPHORIA
Arms were stretched long for an hour of back-patting at the board meeting. The staff could hardly muster enough praise for Super Bowl LVIII, held in Las Vegas for the first time, with strong hints of a return in the near future. The game unequivocally surpassed the F1 Grand Prix.
The numbers were “astounding,” CEO Hill exclaims, highlighted by a record 123.4 million television viewership and some 450,000 fans pouring into Las Vegas for the championship game and related events.
“I always said we had one chance to get this Super Bowl right and we did it,” Hill asserts. “There are so many moving parts to this week, and they all went great. With all humility, we call this the sports and entertainment capital of the world, and we are because other people are confirming it.”
Chief Marketing Officer Kate Wik referenced the plethora of watch parties at Strip resorts, celebrities who were spotted around town and posted on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, Super Bowl photo opportunities greeting passengers at Reid International Airport, buildings wrapped in advertising, and NFL-sponsored fan activities.
QUARTERLY BUDGET REPORT
The general fund operating revenue for the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2023, stands at $237.6 million, an 11 percent increase from $214.2 million a year ago, and room tax revenue came to $186.4 million, up 6.8 percent from $174.5 million last year, COO Yost reports.
Other financial highlights include:
- Occupancy rate of 82.1 percent, up 1.8 percent.
- Average daily room rate of $160.79, up 4.5 percent.
- Average rooms occupied daily is 133,316, up 2.5 percent.
