New Ballpark Site Comes Off Bench For Oakland Athletics In Las Vegas As A’s Now Romance Tropicana Hotel-Casino Site On Strip
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
The Oakland Athletics’ romance of Las Vegas for a ballyard has turned into a speed-dating ballpark site adventure, with the Major League Baseball Team ditching a 49-acre site west of the Strip for a ballpark in favor of the Tropicana hotel site right on the Strip at Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue.
The A’s want to partner with Tropicana’s owner, Bally’s Corporation, to demolish the old hotel not too far from T-Mobile Arena and build their ballpark right on the Strip where infrastructure and transportation resources are as scarce as water in the desert.
That’s the Athletics’ ballpark plan for today, anyway. The Nevada Independent first reported the news today.
Who knows what the A’s stadium search scorecard says next week.
Meanwhile, the site switch from the old Wild Wild West casino site at Tropicana the road and Dean Martin Drive to Tropicana the hotel means the A’s will be asking for only $395 million in public resources instead of the $500 million that was requested for the previous site to build the $1.5 million retractable-roofed venue.
It will take a giant shoehorn to build a MLB ballpark on nine acres of the 34-acre Bally’s site.
If you thought the Raiders stadium on the west side of I-15 was shy in on-site parking, you can safely guess that surface parking will be at a premium at Las Vegas Blvd. and Tropicana.
The A’s have a few other ballpark sites in their back pocket — the Rio hotel-casino off Flamingo Road west of I-15 and the festival site at Sahara Avenue and Las Vegas Blvd.
The Athletics have mentioned the Bally’s Tropicana site in the past, but few took it seriously because of the planning/transportation/logistics headaches of having a 30,000-seat stadium at one of Las Vegas’ busiest intersections. Las Vegas’ underwhelming transportation system is buses and Teslas in tunnels and many locals are not fond of navigating the Strip.
A’s TV broadcast host Brodie Brazil did a nice job here summarizing the Athletics’ new twist in their ballpark site hunt in Las Vegas.
The A’s are still moving ahead with trying to craft a bill in the Nevada Legislature to help with the ballpark funding.
The team is pursuing a timetable of trying to get MLB approval in the fall for relocation, with a groundbreaking in Las Vegas in 2024 and a ballpark opening in 2027 while playing at their Triple A team’s venue in Summerlin.
The Athletics never do anything in a conventional manner, from their colorful players in the 1970s and 1980s to the Moneyball years in the 2000s.
You can say the same for their quest for a new ballyard.
