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Story by Alan Snel Photos by Hugh Byrne
The Athletics’ community benefits package, which features job diversity goals and financial commitments of at least $2 million annually, was a featured item on the Las Vegas Stadium Authority Board meeting agenda Thursday.
The stadium board approved the community benefits plan with scant board member discussion, showing the public the vote was a formality.
We interviewed A’s President Dave Kaval after the meeting on his take of the board approving the community benefits package.
It’s been only two weeks since the A’s revealed their renderings for the $1.5 billion, 33,000-seat stadium that caused trending terms like “spherical Armadillo” and “Sydney Opera House.”
Kaval is the point man on the stadium project that is slated for a nine-acre footprint on the 35-acre parcel owned by Gaming and Leisure Properties, Inc. (GLPI) at the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue. The Tropicana hotel-casino, run by Bally’s Corp., is closing April 2, with demolition set for later this year and a stadium groundbreaking some time in the first half of 2025 for an opening in 2028.
A’s owner John Fisher is looking for local Las Vegas investors, though he said his family is prepared to spend slightly more than $1 billion on the stadium construction with the public contributing $380 million under a state law approved in June.
The community benefits package outlines hiring goals and financial commitments:
Alexander Marks, who represents the state teachers union that alleged in a lawsuit that the A’s stadium funding law is unconstitutional, spoke before the board, arguing the community benefits law and A’s owner Fisher are both flawed.
We interviewed Marks following the meeting:
Other speakers like union and chamber of commerce reps supported the community benefits plan and backed the A’s stadium.
The A’s have a friend in the man who chairs the Las Vegas stadium board, Steve “Man of Many Hats” Hill. Hill also represented the A’s in their pitch before Nevada state legislative committees for the $380 million stadium funding bill in June.
Hill’s own public tourism agency, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), is also working as the stadium board’s administrative consultant — a job once held by consultant Jeremy Aguero. But Aguero is now working for the A’s as a consultant. Aguero also had appeared with Hill before the state legislative committees to push the A’s stadium bill in June.
The community benefits plan is a boiler plate document that was also part of the Raiders stadium approval process.
The benefits document was actually first presented in October, with worker diversity, living wages and financial commitments like $2 million or 1 percent of the team’s ticket revenue (whichever is higher) serving as major features.
A’s will work with their Triple-A affiliate, the Las Vegas Aviators, on community benefits.