Las Vegas Stadium Board Scheduled To Vote On Spending $1 Million In Public Dollars On Legal Costs Related To Athletics Stadium On Strip
By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
Amid all the sports hub-bub in Las Vegas these days, the Oakland Athletics’ planned baseball stadium for the Tropicana site on the Strip is not forgotten.
Oh, no. In fact, the Las Vegas Stadium Authority Board, which was collecting dust after the NFL Raiders’ stadium was built, is rebooting to start the process of working with the Athletics on their stadium that is receiving $380 million in state and county government assistance as part of the $1.5 billion stadium construction estimate.
The stadium board is scheduled to meet Wednesday at 3 PM to discuss some Athletics stadium items, including approving $1 million in public dollars for legal work related to the MLB team’s proposed 33,000-seat stadium at Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard.
The stadium authority board members will be asked to vote on spending $700,000 for 2024 and 2025 to hire the Hunton Andrews Kurth law firm. The stadium board hired that law firm in 2017 for work related to the construction of the Raiders stadium. Lawyer Mark Arnold was the firm’s attorney working for the stadium board.
The board is also scheduled to vote on spending $300,000 for the law firm of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck for legal work in 2024 and 2025.
Angelo Otto is the lawyer for Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck who would work for the stadium board. Her background includes representing the city of Henderson in connection to the sale and development of the Raiders team headquarters in Henderson. The Raiders bought their HQ land for $6 million from the city of Henderson, even though the land was valued at $12 million.
As far as the Athletics stadium timeline goes, the A’s want to demolish the Tropicana hotel-casino and clear the site by mid-2024 in hopes of opening the stadium 2028.
The team needs 75 percent of Major League Baseball’s team owners to approve the franchise’s relocation to Las Vegas from Oakland. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred hopes owners will vote on the Athletics relocation request at their meeting in Arlington, Texas Nov. 14-16.
The A’s are expected to play at the Coliseum in Oakland in 2024. But it’s unknown where the team will play in 2025, 2026 and 2027.
The Athletics have said that the new stadium in Las Vegas will cost $1.5 billion (the construction budget for the Raiders’ domed stadium of 62,500 seats was $1.4 billion).
If the Athletics move to Las Vegas to build the $1.5 billion ballpark, A’s owner John Fisher will pay more than $1.1 billion to construct the venue. It’s unclear why Fisher wouldn’t just spend the $1.1 billion on an open-air ballpark in Oakland.
Wednesday’s stadium board meeting is set for 3 PM Wednesday at the Las Vegas Convention Center board room, 3150 Paradise Road in Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority (LVCVA) is now doing the administrative work for the stadium board after former board consultant, Jeremy Aguero, stepped down because he is now working for the Athletics as a consultant.
