KVIG Informative

Southern Nevada has two large, recent examples of public money and private capital working side by side. They use different tools, and comparing them shows how much the word “partnership” can cover.

Allegiant Stadium: Public Tax, Private Tenant In October 2016, a special session of the Nevada Legislature passed Senate Bill 1, which Gov. Brian Sandoval signed on Oct. 17 at UNLV. The law had Clark County raise hotel room taxes to fund a $750 million public contribution toward a $1.9 billion, 65,000-seat domed stadium, plus a separate room tax increase for $1.4 billion in Las Vegas Convention Center improvements. County ordinances put the stadium increase at 0.88 percentage points in the gaming corridor and 0.5 points in outlying areas, moving the resort-corridor rate from 12 percent to 13.38 percent.

As first announced, the private side included $650 million from the family of Las Vegas Sands Chairman Sheldon Adelson and $500 million from the Raiders. Adelson and Las Vegas Sands later withdrew the $650 million, and the Raiders secured a loan from Bank of America to cover the gap. The sequence shows that the financing of a partnership can be re-cut after the enabling law is signed, even when the public share stays fixed.

Figures from the Las Vegas Stadium Authority show the Raiders originally budgeted $250 million in personal seat license revenue, and the final figure came in at $549.2 million. Combined with a $200 million low-interest loan from the NFL’s G-4 program, that cut the required Bank of America financing to $455.7 million. In 2017, Stadium Authority Board Chairman Steve Hill said the details of the team’s loan would not be public, citing confidentiality that Senate Bill 1 gave the bank and the team, while the stadium’s total cost would eventually be disclosed.

Brightline West: Private Rail, Public Tools Brightline West is a privately owned and operated high-speed rail line planned between Rancho Cucamonga, California, and Las Vegas, a 218-mile route with electric trains designed for speeds up to 186 miles per hour. The U.S. Department of Transportation puts the project at about $12 billion and says it will run primarily along the I-15 median. The developer is DesertXpress Enterprises, LLC, and Brightline’s chairman, Wes Edens, is a co-founder of Fortress Investment Group. Nevada’s share of the line is 34 miles, from the state line to a planned Las Vegas station on land along Las Vegas Boulevard between Blue Diamond and Warm Springs roads.

How Brightline West Is Financed The public tools are layered. The Department of Transportation awarded a $3 billion grant to the Nevada Department of Transportation in December 2023 and allocated tax-exempt private activity bond authority to the project, $1 billion in 2020 and $2.5 billion more in January 2024. Orrick, the law firm that served as bond counsel to the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank and the director of Nevada’s Department of Business and Industry, reported in March 2025 that $2.5 billion in bonds had closed and that the project had received $5.5 billion in federal bond allocations to date.

Nevada Department of Transportation Director Tracy Larkin Thomason told the department’s board that the bond sale was oversold by about a billion dollars, which she tied to favorable rates for investors. She also described about $6 billion in construction loans being lined up from financial institutions. Private activity bonds are tax-exempt bonds issued through a government body for a privately operated project, so the public role here lowers the project’s borrowing cost, while the private owner keeps the operating risk and the revenue.

Comparing the Two The stadium runs on a dedicated tax. Public money is collected first, through room-tax revenue, and the private side’s borrowing is repaid by the team. Brightline works in the other direction. A private company owns and operates the asset, and the public contributes a grant, tax-exempt bond authority, and corridor access that reduce what the owner has to raise on its own. Both fit the broad definition of a partnership, and they distribute risk, cost, and upside in very different ways.

Both projects will be judged over decades, through tax receipts, ridership, and the terms behind each financing. The figures above reflect announcements and agency reports through March 2025. Readers who want to follow what happens next can watch the Stadium Authority’s public meetings and the Nevada Department of Transportation’s board meetings, where the numbers are updated.