MGM to use Vegas shooting site as community center

Published Sep. 3, 2019 5:26 p.m. ET

LAS VEGAS (AP) — MGM Resorts plans to convert the shuttered Las Vegas Strip festival grounds that were the site of a 2017 mass shooting into a community and athletic center and parking for the new stadium being built for the NFL's Oakland Raiders, the company announced Tuesday. It will also create a space on the property to remember the victims.

The festival grounds "will forever be linked to the tragic loss of life that took place there," MGM said in its statement. "We will never forget the victims, and all of those impacted by that evening."

The company owns the site of Route 91 festival grounds and the Mandalay Bay casino-resort, where a gunman in a high-rise suite opened fire on the crowd of 22,000, killing 58 people in the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history.

The company did not release a timeline for the plans, but says it wants to create a community and athletic center on the north end of the property, which MGM says it hopes will host high school basketball tournaments, indoor soccer for children and a practice space for the WNBA team, the Las Vegas Aces.

"It was important to us that the long-term use of the property include the community in some way," the company said in its statement.

MGM said that until the community and athletic center is completed, the property will serve as parking for games and concerts at the new $1.9 billion stadium being built for the Raiders when the team moves to Las Vegas next year.