The South Tahoe Events Center rises in Stateline.
With the opening of the Stateline events center expected in January 2023, it's already booking conferences.
“The center already has a couple of conferences on the books,” said Events Center General Manager Kevin Borycski, adding that they are also close with several youth sporting events and have received a lot of interest from promoters and agents for future concert bookings.
Around 60 people attended the first hard hat tour of the Tahoe South Events Center’s “front of house” Feb. 10.
“It is magnificent and will be the crowning jewel in our area of Lake Tahoe,” Commissioner Wes Rice said on Thursday.
The tour offered a peek at how the operations will flow, the inside seating bowl taking shape, suite level decking, and the box office and main concourse roughed in.
Borycski said when completed the center will have around 15 full-time staff members and employ 200-300 part-time staff to run the events. All food and beverage operations will be handled in-house by the center’s own executive chef.
During the tour, Borycski gave a rundown on the center’s seating capacity for the various events and the center’s configuration capabilities. Stage concerts will have a 6,000-seat capacity, whereas hockey or ice events will be at 4,200, and basketball or similar events will have a seating capacity of 4,700. For conferences, the event floor can provide 26,000 to 27,000 square feet, and the upper levels will provide 15,000 to 16,000 square feet of meeting room space.
As part of the project, the power lines along Highway 50 will be placed underground to improve the corridor aesthetic.
Funding for the $80 million-plus project include $34 million, from the former Douglas County Redevelopment Area No. 2; a $5 per night lodging surcharge on each room at Tahoe Township properties: casinos/hotels, Lodge at Edgewood and vacation rentals will account for 43 percent of debt service to repay the bonds; and current transient lodging license tax and transient occupancy tax for the remaining 38 percent.
