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Stadium Authority approves Raiders lease agreement

Posted at 9:02 PM, May 18, 2017
and last updated 2017-05-19 00:02:17-04
The lease agreement between the Raiders and Las Vegas Stadium Authority has been approved and is ready for NFL owners.
 
The deal was approved by a unanimous vote by the Stadium Authority Thursday.
 
The document is on the agenda for owners meeting Monday and Tuesday.
 
“We will go to the Chicago meetings with the NFL and hopefully get approval on Tuesday," Raiders President Marc Badain said.
 
The Stadium Authority seemed confident owners would approve the deal, because they were involved in the negotiations that led to the document approved Thursday.
 
"The interaction with the NFL … it was good, it was good," Stadium Authority chairman Steve Hill said.
 
The league asked to see the lease after approving the team’s move from Oakland earlier this month.
 
While the Stadium Authority and Raiders have an agreement on the terms of the lease, there are still a dozen other documents that need to be finalized before the lease is officially signed.
 
Among those documents is a joint use agreement between the Raiders and UNLV that will cover the changes the Rebels can make to the field and stadium on game days as well as the costs the university will have to cover.
 
Another document that drew interest during public comment at Thursday’s meeting was the Community Benefits Agreement.
 
That deal is supposed to cover the percentage of the construction work that will go to local residents, in addition to the amount of work that will be done by low-income workers, minorities and other groups.
 
Several public commenters raised concerns about what may be involved in that agreement.
 
Hill said he has already had early talks about ideas for the agreement and says non-profit board may be created to make sure it is run properly.
 
“Senator [Aaron] Ford and I met Tuesday we talked about the content of that which he has an outline. We talked about the process of getting that organization up and running," Hill said.
 
That process is expected to be discussed more in depth at the June meeting.
 
While that work is happening the Raiders say they are also in discussions for naming rights for the 65,000 seat stadium.
 
Badain said they have had discussions about naming rights, but would not go into further detail.
 
The Stadium Authority and the Raiders hope to get all of the supporting agreements finalized in time to break ground by early 2018 to meet the planned August 2020 stadium opening.