Ivanpah Valley Airport is a planned government

relief airport A relief airport or reliever airport is an airport that is built or designated to provide relief or additional capacity to an area when the primary commercial airport, commercial airport(s) requires additional capacity, on a long-term or temporar ...

for Harry Reid International Airport in the

Las Vegas Valley The Las Vegas Valley is a major metropolitan area in the Southern Nevada, southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada, and the second largest in the Southwestern United States. The state's largest urban agglomeration, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Stat ...

, to be located in the

Ivanpah Valley The Ivanpah Valley is in southeastern California and southern Nevada in the United States. The valley is between the New York Mountains and the Ivanpah Mountains in San Bernardino County on the California side, and in Clark County on the Nevada ...

of the

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily in ...

, within Clark County, Nevada. Since there is only limited space left for expansion at Harry Reid, due to being located adjacent to the

Las Vegas Strip The Las Vegas Strip is a stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard, Las Vegas Boulevard South in Clark County, Nevada, that is known for its concentration of resort hotels and casinos. The Strip, as it is known, is about long, and is immediately south of ...

, a new airport is the only alternative to increase capacity by a significant amount. The project has been on hold since June 2010. The planned location for the airport is approximately 5 miles southwest of Jean Airport. It is not known whether the Jean Airport will have to be closed if the new airport is opened. However, this would be likely due to the runways lining up and the interference between the small general aviation aircraft and commercial jets.

History

Legislation was signed on October 28, 2000, allowing the Clark County Commission to purchase land for a new commercial airport. The Commission was to buy of land in the

from the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's la ...

, about southwest of Harry Reid International Airport for the Ivanpah Airport. The location is between the towns of Jean and Primm. The airport had been planned to open in 2017. However the Clark County Department of Aviation announced the project was put on temporary hold as of June 2010 due to the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...

, until air traffic and tourism demands to Metro Las Vegas returns and increases. As of mid-2018 it was planned that the environmental impact study would last at least two more years. That meant that construction was guaranteed not to begin until at least 2020.

Construction

Clark County Department of Aviation The Clark County Department of Aviation is a part of the government of the Clark County Commission. Harry Reid International Airport, the main commercial airport and the four general aviation facilities in the Clark County Airport System are owned b ...

had hoped to start construction in 2010 and to open the facility in 2017. These dates were based on Harry Reid reaching 90% (49.5 million passengers) of its projected capacity of 55 million passengers in 2017, it actually had 48.5 million. At that time, Harry Reid was expected to be at 55 million passengers in 2011. The economic recession of 2007-2010 has slowed demand considerably in the Las Vegas region and as a result, planning for the airport has slowed. The federal environmental review process has been temporarily suspended and planning has slowed as well. Most recently the project was working to meet the lengthy environmental studies required for major projects. The engineering consultant firm

Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. or VHB is a multidisciplinary American civil engineering consulting and design firm headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts with offices throughout the country. The company was founded in 1979 by Bob Vanasse (1979-1 ...

was chosen as the firm to help prepare the Environmental Impact Statement for the airport.

Access to airport

The location designated for the airport is between the towns of Jean and Primm, Nevada, and between Interstate 15 and the Union Pacific; this leaves a gap of approximately for the construction of the airport. The Interstate 15 right-of-way is expected to be used by the private

Brightline West Brightline West is a proposed privately run high-speed rail route linking Las Vegas Valley and Rancho Cucamonga in the Greater Los Angeles area through the High Desert (California), California high desert. The line will connect with existing ra ...

(formerly DesertXpress and XpressWest) high-speed rail line, purchased by Brightline in 2018. While no intermediate stops are planned, the railroad partnered with the airport authority in 2020 to ensure rail and flight operations and constructions would not conflict. The also stalled

California–Nevada Interstate Maglev The California–Nevada Interstate Maglev project was a proposed Maglev train line from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Anaheim, California. One segment would run from Las Vegas to Primm, Nevada, with proposed service to the Las Vegas area's forthcoming I ...

line to connect Las Vegas with California was to terminate at the new airport.

References

External links

Southern Nevada Supplemental Airport (SNSA) Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)

Ivanpah Valley Airfield Alternative Analysis (IVAAAN) by NASA Aviation Systems Division
{{Las Vegas Valley Airports in Clark County, Nevada Ivanpah Valley Mojave Desert Proposed airports in the United States