National Basketball Association

NBA champ has $1.3 billion plan to build arena on Las Vegas strip

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 7:34 p.m. ET

foxsports

A former NBA player says he wants to build a $1.3 billion arena and hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

Las Vegas basketball player and businessman Jackie Robinson announced the project this week.

It's tentatively called the All Net Arena and Resort, and would be built on the site of a former water park near the renovated SLS Las Vegas hotel-casino and the Fontainebleau tower.

Robinson says the project is privately funded. He says construction could begin next spring and be completed in 2016. Robinson played at UNLV in the late 1970s, and is still in the top 10 in rebounds and top 20 in scoring in school history. He played briefly in the NBA, including 12 games as a rookie with the NBA champion Seattle SuperSonics in the 1978-79 season.

According to the Las Vegas Sun, the arena would be four levels, seat 22,000, and include 75 luxury boxes: 25 1,000-square-foot executive suites and 50 500-square-foot corporate suites. The plans include a retractable roof.

The Sun said the arena would take up more than 862,000 square feet and stand on 27 acres between the SLS Las Vegas (a construction project that was formerly the Sahara) and the dormant Fontainebleau project site.

MGM Resorts International is partnering with sports and entertainment promoter AEG on another arena on the other side of the Strip.