What could a major film studio investment mean for East Las Vegas?

A controversial film tax credit bill is being decided at Nevada’s special session. While it has detractors, local Latino leaders believe it will create jobs.

Ahead of Nevada’s special legislative session, supporters advocated at a Hispanics in Politics meeting on behalf of a bill aimed at sealing a massive deal for Summerlin Studios—dubbed Hollywood 2.0 by lawmakers. The proposal is backed by the pioneering Nevada development company Howard Hughes Holdings and entertainment giants Sony Pictures and Warner Bros.

The project, which is installed, hinges on an allotment of $1.4 billion in “non-infrastructure transferable tax credits,” most recently introduced through Assembly Bill 238. A similar proposal failed during the 2023 Legislature. The bill is one of several measures that Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo brought back for a vote during this week’s special session. 

Leaders across the aisle are split on the decision to approve what would be the largest tax abatement in state history, nearly doubling the $750 million tax credit awarded to Allegiant Stadium. 

It’s passage would seal the deal for Summerlin Studios: an entertainment complex featuring film studios, visitor experiences, hotel rooms, offices, and retail. 

“We’re building studios in Nevada with a whole goal now,” Democrat Assemblyman Reuben D’Silva, who supports the bill, said in an interview this week. “The entire deal is removing significant aspects of the film industry from California and other parts of the world and bringing them here.”

D’Silva predicts the bill will establish a world-famous, Hollywood-like destination based on mechanisms in the bill that incentivize production in Nevada through tax breaks and a clause that promotes local employment. For Washoe County Commissioner Alexis Hill, a Democrat running for governor with a campaign focused on sustainability, denouncing the deal is central to her candidacy.

“When they’re transferable, that means that the studios can sell these tax credits to casinos, essentially to offset their tax burden,” Hill said. “That means the casinos can use the tax credits … and that puts the state budget in peril.”

In Nevada, which lacks an income or corporate tax, transferable tax credits have been compared to government payouts that taxpayers forfeit, reports the Tax Foundation.

What’s the rationale for behemoth tax breaks for wealthy corporations? Economic diversification. 

For Matt Walker, Director of Community and Government Relations at Howard Hughes, the production studio represents “what our community is all about.” The studio complex, he stated, also “represents a $6.3 billion injection of new capital for Nevada.”

“Whether [workers] have a high school degree or whether they’re an engineer, they will have brand new [job] opportunities at the studio … for years to come,” he said this week at a Hispanics in Politics breakfast meeting ahead of the special session.

Financial analysis presented to the 2025 Legislature estimated that the studio would generate $2.8 billion in construction revenue over about eight years and more than $3 billion in annual economic activity while operational. It’s also projected to bring in tens of thousands of jobs that last at least a year.

For Aaron Ibarra, chief of staff at Southern Nevada Building Trades Unions (SNBTU), jobs and career pipelines are central to the tax-credit trade-off. Ibarra represents 20,000 of the 24,000 union laborers in Southern Nevada. He said Trump’s clean energy cuts have dealt fatal blows to construction projects, rendering thousands of tradesmembers jobless.

“We’re starting to see additional work, but it’s still slow,” Ibarra told a crowd of more than 40 people at Hispanics in Politics. “Unfortunately, with President Donald Trump, he cut a lot of major projects … one of the biggest solar projects in Nevada’s history.”

On top of construction jobs, Summerlin Studios also entered into agreements with SNBTU to build career pipelines into construction and production at hubs in predominantly Latino neighborhoods, such as East Las Vegas and the Historic Westside.