The Oakland Raiders Las Vegas NFL Stadium’s estimated true completion date will be February 17th, 2022, if information released by the Raiders via The Las Vegas Review Journal is to be believed, and the date starting point for the stadium is the groundbreaking date of November 17th 2017.
And even if one shaves off four months and moves the date-of-measure back from the November 2017 to February 14th 2018 as a start time, that leaves still leaves November 17, 2021 as the date the stadium is finished. This is a far cry from the originally projected June 2020 month period as the time the large event complex would be finished.
This information is based on a report released by the The Las Vegas Review Journal‘s Rick Velotta on July 7th. Don Webb, the Raiders head of construction, said “We’re 15 percent through the construction, so there’s 85 percent of the potential for surprises still lingering. But coming up out of the ground, when you haven’t had any serious, unexpected problems it is somewhat unusual. You’re excavating a million cubic yards of earth, you know there are subsurface conditions that others have experienced and hear they can be somewhat surprising, but we really didn’t have any.”
Velotta did not ask Webb about the timeline to completion The builder, Mortenson Construction, held an event for stadium construction contractors last month, that revealed “substantial completion” was expected by July of 2020, but not completion. The Las Vegas Stadium Authority Documents show that the stadium is to be finished by August of 2020, but a previous timeline, which then showed June as the finish date, also projected a three-month move in date to August. But with August of 2020 as the new finish date, that pushes the stadium opening date to October of 2020. And that information’s just using the documents available to be read.
But the fact remains: from stadium groundbreaking to this July 8th point in time is 233 days, over which time 15 percent of stadium construction has been done, according to Mr. Webb. Take 15 percent and convert that to a number which is .15. Then take that /15 and divide it by 233 to get the total number of days needed to finish the stadium based on what Mr. Webb said: that’s 1,533 days. Then subtract 233 to shave off the days already elapsed, and that leaves us with 1,320 days. Then, using a “days-to-date” online calculator to find out what day is 1,320 days into the future from today, and we get February 17, 2022.
Webb said that, while only just less than 500 construction workers are on the site right now, it’s expected to ramp up as the year progresses. Still, even moving the date up a year, puts the year of completion at February 17, 2022. And Webb himself told the Review Journal “I always anticipated the workforce would be plentiful, experienced and motivated. You’ve heard me talk before about why we should be able to do even more work in the same time period that was performed in Minneapolis (at U.S. Bank Stadium) because the experienced contracting pool and labor pool and civic support we have in Las Vegas, coupled with the climate, allows us to do four years’ worth of work in three years and that’s pretty much held true.” Three year’s of work would take the project from 2018 to 2021, not 2020 – the stadium groundbreaking was done with 91.6 percent of 2017 gone, so 2018 is the first full year of Raiders Las Vegas stadium construction.
All Signs Point To 2021 For Las Vegas Stadium, And NFL Strike
This news of signs pointing to a 2021 Las Vegas Stadium opening and not a 2020 date also places the new large events center right smack in the middle of what National Football League Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith says will be a “certain” NFL Players Strike. Given the length of the work-stoppage, that could push the Raiders to the 2022 NFL Season for its first full season in Las Vegas.
For the present, it does, indeed, look like the Oakland Raiders will remain just that for the foreceable future, at least through 2020, and at the Oakland Coliseum. Building a giant stadium is not something that can or should be rushed. Indeed, the NFL has not granted the Raiders a Super Bowl date for Las Vegas as of this writing. This marks the only the second time the NFL has not had a Super Bowl at a new stadium since 2000 within two to three years of its completion (the first time was Indianapolis and Super Bowl 46 in 2012), and if we take the August 2020 date as the one to measure from. In 2022, Los Angeles has the Super Bowl – then, Phoenix and then New Orleans. Will Las Vegas land 2024?
Stay tuned.