Bally’s Corp. Chairman Wants First Hotel Open By Time A’s Stadium Is Ready On Strip In 2028
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Bally’s Corporation wants to have its first hotel open by the time the planned A’s stadium opens on the Strip in spring 2028 for the Major League Baseball season.
“It makes sense to have something open by then,” Bally’s chairman Soo Kim told LVSportsBiz.com Monday morning.
Kim said the game plan is to have the first of three planned hotels on the 35-acre site open by the time the $1.5 billion, 30,000-seat A’s stadium is ready for Opening Day in 2028.
The hotel would be connected to the A’s ballpark concourse by a pedestrian bridge under the “integrated resort” plan, Kim said.
Bally’s Corporation and the A’s are partnering with landowner Gaming & Leisure Properties, Inc. (GLPI) on the redevelopment of the former Trop site at the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue. MGM Resorts International owns hotel-casinos on the other three corners of the iconic Strip intersection.
Technically speaking, the A’s stadium footprint is 9.41 acres, according to paperwork filed by GPLI with Clark County. Take a look:
Kim said construction on the first of the three hotel-casinos would need to start no later than 12 months after the A’s break ground in either April, May or June 2025.
He noted he has no doubt the A’s will be in Las Vegas.
“They’re coming. They’re coming. They’re coming,” Kim said.
The site can hold up to 3,000 hotel rooms. Kim noted. Bally’s, which owned the former Tropicana hotel-casino, would have imploded the Trop buildings even without the A’s stadium being built.
“All it did was accelerate the timing for us,” Kim said of the A’s stadium on the site. He did note Bally’s did “look at plans to renovate around the bones” of the Tropicana buildings but chose implosion and new construction.
Bally’s looks at the A’s stadium as hosting more than ballgames. Kim said the hotel on the site can also host people visiting for concerts and other events at a 30,000-seat venue that he said is sized between 62,500-seat Allegiant Stadium and T-Mobile Arena, which can hold as many as 20,000 for UFC fights or boxing matches.
Kim said Bally’s has a strong relationship with landowner GLPI and envisions the landlord as playing a strong role in the financing of the hotel. Here’s a look at the site. A security worker there said it will take five to eight weeks to remove the rubble.
The Bally’s hotel and the A’s stadium can work in tandem much like the Chicago Cubs’ Wrigley Field and an adjacent hotel, Kim said.
“We can pull off a version of that,” he said.
He said he envisions the Bally’s hotel selling space for conventions, exhibitions, group events, speeches and talks, with the resort integrated into the concourses of the A’s stadium.
“This is a fun project,” Kim said. “Vegas is a city that does everything.”
