Las Vegas Stadium Authority officials expect all four contractual agreements with the Oakland Athletics regarding a $1.5 billion baseball stadium on the Strip to be completed by early December, giving Major League Baseball plenty of time to sign the documents.
The A’s hope to begin construction on the stadium by April 2025.
In brief comments following a less than hour-long meeting Thursday, Stadium Authority Chairman Steve Hill said the A’s could present the team’s private financing plan, which is still in the works, to the board by the Oct. 17 meeting.
“That’s certainly a possibility,” Hill said. “That’s necessary to approve everything that needs to happen.”
Last month, A’s representative Sandy Dean told the Las Vegas Stadium Authority that the team was “well positioned” to secure financing for the stadium, but he did not provide specific details on how the franchise will finance its expected $1.2 billion share of the construction costs.
Public financing for the stadium includes $180 million in transferable state tax credits (which the team could sell to other companies for cash), an estimated $120 million in Clark County bonds and a $25 million county loan for infrastructure needs around the stadium. The bill calls for the bonds to be paid back with stadium revenue.
Dean said last month the team would use about $350 million of the public funding, with the remaining $30 million left to offset any cost overruns.
He said the team is looking to borrow $300 million, but one or more lenders were not named. Sports financing firm Galatioto Sports Partners has reportedly been hired to find investors.
Dean said the A’s are looking for equity investors to finance part of the $850 million that team owner John Fisher needs to raise for the 33,000-seat retractable-roof ballpark project.
Dean was present but did not attend Thursday’s meeting.
Hill was optimistic, saying the October meeting would allow the A’s and the stadium authority to finalize everything by December.
“The public, the board and everyone else can look into it and get involved,” Hill said. “We’re entering the third round and we’re on our way home. There aren’t many questions left.”
Stadium officials discussed the second draft of a 130-page, 30-year lease for the baseball stadium, which is planned for a 9-acre site at the southwest corner of the Strip and Tropicana Avenue.
Ed Finger, chief financial officer of the Las Vegas Convention and Authority, listed fewer than a dozen provisions and minor language changes in the draft lease that have been modified since last October.
“We protected the things that Major League Baseball (wanted),” Finger told the board. “Various definitions were changed, added or deleted to comply with the other agreements.”
The Stadium Authority approved the team’s community benefits agreement in March, which requires the A’s to pay $500,000 in cash and in-kind contributions annually until the team begins play at the new stadium in April 2028.
At that point, the team’s financial obligation will be the greater of $2 million or 1 percent of the ballclub’s ticket revenue for the calendar year. These contributions are required under special session legislation that awarded the team more than $380 million in grants to cover stadium construction costs.
Discussions about the non-relocation agreement took place last month, with the most contentious point being how many of the 81 scheduled regular-season home games the A’s would play outside of Las Vegas in a given season.
The A’s agreed to reduce the maximum number of home games outside of their home market from eight per year to seven games over two seasons, with a maximum of four home games outside of their home market in a season.
The development agreement discussed last year was also not approved.
