LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Crews closed the Bellagio sidewalk and two southbound lanes of Las Vegas Boulevard to start construction on a large broadcast platform for Super Bowl 58, which will be played next month at Allegiant Stadium.
County officials say two lanes of southbound Las Vegas Boulevard between Flamingo and Bellagio Drive will remain closed at least through February 16, and more closures begin next week around Allegiant Stadium.
Some businesses in the area are getting ready to deal with these closures so soon after F1.
“If (people) spent two hours stuck in a car trying to go two blocks, they might not ever come back to Vegas,” Kappa Toys owner Lizzy Newsome told FOX5 Wednesday. “So it’s always a concern when the traffic is messed up that much.”
Newsome has a Kappa Toys location at the Caesars Forum Shops. She remembers how difficult the months of F1 preparation and weeks of cleanup were difficult to get through.
“I think that’s the thing that upset us the most, was just how much it stressed everyone out,” she recalled. “You could feel it on the Strip. All of the employees working everywhere were upset. So when you go to get your coffee at work, everyone working at the coffee shop is mad too.”
This new round of closures, a few of which are next door to her Caesars location, is giving Newsome pause.
“It just made for a really stressful working environment,” she said about the F1 closures. “And I’m kind of nervous about the Super Bowl happening now.”
Newsome did note some key differences that give her hope that the next month will go smoother, including the timing of the construction.
“As somebody who runs a toy store, I’d much rather have a weird event happening in February than a weird event happening right in the middle of our holiday season,” she said.
On top of that, the side streets that locals rely on, especially while construction is happening, are largely left alone compared to the F1 preparations.
“The thing that made F1 sort of unbearable is some of the detours,” Newsome said. “There was nowhere to detour. So the buses were dropping people off at Tropicana and saying, ‘Walk.’”
Lastly, as Newsome notes, the project itself is different.
“At least we know that there’s not as much permanent work being done,” she said.
It’s true that cleanup is planned to be much shorter than the process took for the Las Vegas Grand Prix — with about five days set aside after the Super Bowl is played to take down the constructions.
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