Clark County commissioners are slated to consider plans for a $24 million youth center in Las Vegas from basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal’s foundation.
The commission is scheduled to vote Feb. 19 on a proposed 31,123-square-foot facility near the intersection of Lamb and Lake Mead boulevards that will eventually be called the Shaquille O’Neal Youth Development Complex, county records show.
Located in the eastern Las Vegas Valley, the facility will be home to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada and an alumni center for student-support group Communities In Schools of Nevada, project manager Chase Wheeler told county officials in a letter in December.
Programming will focus on academics, leadership, career development, healthy lifestyles, sports and fitness, and recreation and creative arts, wrote Wheeler, of Las Vegas-based Carpenter Sellers Del Gatto Architects.
It will also have a Metropolitan Police Department neighborhood outreach office, he added.
Clark County commissioners last summer approved donating the vacant, nearly 5-acre project site on Kell Lane, which had been owned by the county, to The Shaquille O’Neal Foundation.
The Las Vegas-based nonprofit group aims to break ground in late March or early April and open the complex in fall 2026, Executive Director Lisa Morris Hibbler told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Tuesday.
She said the project will cost $24 million to develop.
O’Neal, 52, launched the foundation in 2019. His group focuses on helping underserved youth and says its work is primarily targeted in Atlanta and Las Vegas.
The 7-foot-1-inch basketball Hall of Famer spent nearly 20 years in the NBA, racking up numerous awards, All-Star Game selections and other accolades. Known for his powerful dunks but lousy free throws, he retired from basketball in 2011 and has been a visible presence in America’s casino capital over the last several years.
In 2018, O’Neal and partners opened the Big Chicken sandwich shop just east of the Las Vegas Strip. In 2019, he teamed with Zappos for a “Shaq-to-School” charity event at the online shoe-seller’s downtown Las Vegas headquarters to give shoes and school supplies to families in need.
In 2021, then-Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman gave him a key to the city after O’Neal’s foundation teamed up to donate $200,000 to renovate basketball courts at Las Vegas’ Doolittle Complex.
The following year, O’Neal’s “private residence” in Las Vegas — a luxury house near Sunset Park— went up for sale at $3 million, the listing agent announced.
The house sold this past fall for $2.9 million.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.