A Las Vegas Bicycle Ride: Let’s Check On A’s Stadium Construction On Strip
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Shop at Jay’s Market at 190 East Flamingo Road at the Koval Lane intersection east of the Strip.
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — It’s 6:10 AM Friday as a traffic control worker is stopping traffic on Reno Avenue to allow construction trucks and workers access to the 35-acre site where the MLB Athletics are building their $1.75 billion domed stadium on the Strip.
The A’s might be struggling through a horrendous team slump, watching their record go from 22-20 to 24-40 (two wins in 22 games).
But off the field the dirt is moving on a 35.3-acre site at the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue to make way for a 33,000-fan stadium that A’s owner John Fisher failed to deliver in the Bay area.
There’s something about free government money that seems to attract major league teams from Oakland to the Strip entertainment corridor.
In 2016, Nevada state legislators approved $750 million to help the Raiders build a stadium on the west side of I-15 across from Mandalay Bay. And two years ago, the state lawmakers did it again, this time passing a bill earmarking $380 million in government assistance to aid the A’s with building their stadium. The Raiders stadium (pictured below) opened in 2020 and the A’s stadium is slated to open in 2028. The Raiders and A’s created legislative bills designed to not have the public vote on the stadium construction subsidies.
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Yes, I visited the A’s stadium construction site via bicycle. It was a pitstop along a 50-mile route that takes me from my home across from Red Rock National Conservation Lands outside Las Vegas to the Strip and then to downtown for a turn back up the big hill to Red Rock Canyon and back to my homestead.
I left at first light at 5 AM and bicycled east on Blue Diamond Road, drawn by the 5:25 AM sunrise on the eastern horizon.
Most of the people in their cars complied with Nevada state law and changed lanes to pass me in the second passing lane. Some did not move over and whizzed by my left shoulder by several feet. Not the greatest feeling. But that’s Las Vegas. Not the kindest place for bicyclists.
I made a left turn on Valley View and headed north to my first stop at Allegiant Stadium. The big domed venue is the pride and joy of Las Vegas area officials.
But the biggest beneficiary is Raiders owner Mark Davis who has watched his NFL franchise’s value soar from $1.4 billion in Oakland a decade ago to more than $7 billion these days thanks to Southern Nevada subsidizing the construction of the stadium that he manages and that produces eye-opening revenues that he pockets.
On this morning, the glassy, black-veneered venue sits quiet like a tomb. For all the hype about the number of events the stadium hosts, the building does not host a ticketed event like a Raiders game or concert 300 days out of the year.
In Las Vegas’ bread-and-circus economy and lifestyle, the Raiders stadium is cherished locally, even if there’s more than $1 billion in hotel room tax to be raised to pay off the debt on the public’s $750 million contribution to the stadium construction.
And thanks to the Raiders’ increased value, Davis cashed in big-time, selling minority stakes in the team to the likes of Tom Brady.
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It’s a short bike ride from the Raiders stadium to the A’s ballpark construction scene.
I take a side street between the Mandalay Bay and Luxor hotel-casinos and pedal across Las Vegas Boulevard along Reno Avenue to the construction site.
It’s a back to the future bicycle ride because I routinely bicycled to the Raiders stadium construction site before it opened.
And the same construction company tandem is building the A’s ballpark.
Mortensen and McCarthy are coordinating the construction with Bally’s Corp., which told LVSportsBiz.com in October that it hopes to build a hotel-casino next to the A’s stadium. A pedestrian bridge would connect the hotel with the ballpark.
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Bicycling the Strip at 6:30 AM is a remarkably relaxing activity as there is little traffic on the iconic boulevard.
There’s a closed lane that I use as an ad-hoc protected lane as I approached Flamingo Road because there is not a road worker in sight at the close lane — a common scene around the Las Vegas area.
The weather is exquisitely nice for early June. After this week’s unusual turbulent August-style monsoon storms, this morning was, well, delightful.
Take a look:
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I make a left turn at Circus Circus and pedal a short distance to Sammy Davis Jr. Drive, where I turn right and head to downtown.
A Clark County government pickup truck buzzed me even though the county worker is supposed to move over a lane to the passing lane if it’s open.
You might notice that Las Vegas/Clark County is not exactly at the top of the class when it comes to building accommodating roads and trails for bicyclists. Las Vegas ranked 1,647 out of 2,579 cities, a pathetic 36th percentile ranking in bicycle resources, according to the national independent People For Bikes organization.
When I arrived here in 2012, I saw there was no paved trail connecting the busy growing suburb of Summerlin with the region’s most popular outdoor resource, the Red Rock Scenic Drive of the Red Rock National Conservation Area. A proposed Legacy Trail has been in the works for literally decades, but the BLM, county, city, Nevada DOT and Summerlin master developer Howard Hughes Corp. have failed to make it happen. There might be a ground breaking soon for this badly-needed paved trail, but don’t hold your breath.
There’s also no protected trail from downtown Las Vegas to the Strip, where many people work. Again, no vision among elected officials. They allow the Strip’s hotel owners to dictate public policy and that means the hotel industry’s wants eclipse those of the public and locals.
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I turned left on Bonneville/Alta to bike up the sloping hill to Summerlin and then pedaled over to Charleston for the journey on State Route 159 through Red Rock Canyon to my home.
It was a marvelous 50-mile bicycle ride, a rectangle-shaped route that included the high desert, the growing suburbs, the Strip and the A’s stadium site.
The weather was marvelous. It was a spectacular bicycle ride.
I got home and just wish this place called Las Vegas cared as much as improving health care, schools and public services for local as much as it does giving government money to major league billionaire team owners for stadiums.
I will keep pedaling.
PSA
