RENO, Nev. (AP) — A $1 billion makeover of Reno’s largest hotel-casino requires a brand new off-campus area for the College of Nevada’s basketball groups.
The Wolf Pack women and men could possibly be enjoying on the Grand Sierra Resort venue by 2026 underneath the bold 10-year enlargement plan introduced Wednesday by resort officers and Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve.
Along with the ten,000-seat area, the enlargement plans for a brand new 800-room lodge tower, 300 “inexpensive” riverfront residential models, a golf heart and Las Vegas-like water reveals.
“The imaginative and prescient is to remodel GSR right into a vacation spot the place group, sports activities and leisure come collectively,” resort proprietor Alex Mereulo, who additionally is almost all proprietor of the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes, mentioned throughout a information convention Wednesday.
Mereulo and College of Nevada President Brian Sandoval confirmed they’ve been exploring a partnership for a while between the resort and the basketball crew, “which might make the world their dwelling starting with the autumn 2026 season.”
They mentioned no public cash shall be concerned within the financing.
A rendering of the world indicated it will be constructed within the car parking zone of the prevailing hotel-casino.
Nevada basketball coach Steve Alford advised the gang the world would have a huge effect on recruiting.
“Now, as we get into a brand new period of basketball and the way we go about doing our enterprise, with the NIL (Title Picture Likeness), with the switch portal, to have the ability to promote this on high of our group, on high of our college, it simply places us at an entire ‘nother degree. It’s an entire ‘nother scholar athlete that we’re going to have the ability to get into properties and discuss to,” Alford mentioned.
Nevada, of the Mountain West Convention, has performed its video games on campus on the 11,500-seat Lawlor Occasions Middle because the heart opened in 1983. Earlier than that, it performed in a conference heart south of downtown.
The two,000-room resort, close to the Interstate 80-580 interchange, boasted the biggest on line casino ground in North America when it opened because the MGM in 1978. It later flew the banners of Bally’s and the Reno Hilton. It’s been the Grand Sierra Resort since 2006, and underneath management of Mereulo’s present possession group since 2011.
Renderings of the proposed enchancment present that the present waterside driving vary — through which golfers goal at targets on a pond — will get a three-story pavilion with 50 driving areas, a promenade and Bellagio-style fountains.
The funding can be the most important in a Reno on line casino property because the Silver Legacy, at an estimated price of $230 million, opened in 1995.
Final yr, Las Vegas hosted Candy 16 video games for the NCAA basketball match at T-Cellular Enviornment on the Vegas Strip. However earlier than that, the NCAA Match had averted Nevada altogether as a result of sports activities playing is authorized right here. The governing physique for collegiate athletics even had a coverage prohibiting its championship occasions from being performed in Nevada.
With authorized sports activities betting spreading throughout the nation, the NCAA now has no qualms about crowning its champions in Las Vegas. Others embody hockey’s Frozen 4 in 2026 and the Last 4 in 2028.
