By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
The MLB Oakland Athletics are ready to show the public their renderings for their planned 33,000-seat, $1.5 billion baseball stadium at the Tropicana hotel-casino site on the Strip.
The A’s, which recently received approval from Major League Baseball to move from Oakland for Las Vegas, has lined up Gov. Joe Lombardo, major South Nevada officials and their architect, Bjarke Ingels, for a rendering unveiling scheduled for Monday.
In the past, the Athletics showed drawings that were more whimsical in nature that showed a baseball stadium at the corner of Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard. The baseball team says it can build a ballpark on nine acres on the 35-acre Tropicana site at the southeast corner of the prominent intersection. (After the A’s said the previous drawings were not actual depictions of the stadium, LVSportsBiz.com declined to use them in our stories.)
The Athletics are here in Southern Nevada for one reason: the Nevada Legislature approved a law in a special session in June that earmarked $380 million in public assistance to help the A’s build the stadium. That $380 million includes $120 million in bonds that will be sold by Clark County. Special charges on items sold at the ballpark site in a designated tax district are supposed to generate enough revenues to pay off the public debt on those bonds.
Monday’s session will also feature the first time A’s owner John Fisher will make a public appearance in Las Vegas to discuss the baseball stadium.
Fisher is known for not interacting with fans and making public appearances to discuss his baseball team. (In that regard, he’s very different from Raiders owner Mark Davis, who is seen interacting with fans before Raiders and Aces games.) Fans in the Bay area are very bitter and upset about the A’s leaving after more than 50 years in Oakland.
Here’s a view at the Tropicana site looking at the New York-New York and MGM Grand hotel-casinos.
Joining Fisher and architect Ingels are Lombardo who signed the stadium funding bill into law; LVCVA tourism agency chief/stadium board chairman Steve Hill who represented the A’s in front of the state legislature in June; UNLV President Keith Whitfield; Clark County Commission Chairman Jim Gibson; and Susie Martinez, executive secretary-treasurer of the Nevada-State AFL-CIO. A “UNLV student” is also joining the stadium rendering announcement.
In Las Vegas, major hotel companies like MGM Resorts International, labor unions and chambers of commerce have supported using public money to help build a stadium for the Athletics. But most residents either oppose public money to help build the A’s stadium or are indifferent to the baseball team coming to Las Vegas.
The A’s move to Las Vegas is a much different vibe than when the Raiders moved here thanks to the $750 million public subsidy approved by the state legislature in 2016 to help build the NFL team’s stadium in 2020. That’s because many residents, while not necessarily supporting public money for a stadium, knew the Las Vegas market needed a contemporary stadium to compete in the tourism business.
The statewide teachers union PAC, Schools Over Stadiums, argues the state bill designating the $380 million for the A’s stadium is flawed with five state constitutional problems. Schools Over Stadiums also wants a statewide public vote on the stadium funding, though a judge in Carson City earlier this month struck down the group’s first attempt at a referendum.
Sports owners and promoters have come to Las Vegas to stage events and build stadiums because they know officials here are open to doing business and providing government money and resources for outside sports events and teams. For example, the Clark County Commission provided Formula One free access to 3.8 miles of public roads for the recent Las Vegas Grand Prix race without the county being compensated. Instead, Formula One wants the county to pay $40 million for the road paving work needed for the race.
Las Vegas will be coping with the teardown of the race course for weeks after the 90-minute race took place Nov. 18.
The A’s will play at the Coliseum in Oakland in 2024.
But it’s not known where the baseball team will play in 2025, 2026 and 2027. The Athletics hope to open the baseball stadium on the Strip in 2028. Demolition of all the Tropicana hotel site buildings is scheduled for late 2024 with stadium construction starting in 2025.
The stadium rendering unveiling is scheduled for a time that is in the middle of the MLB Winter Meetings in Nashville, Tennessee from Dec. 3-6.