LAS VEGAS – Steve Hill, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, expressed optimism that three key documents needed to begin construction on a new stadium for the Athletics would be approved on Dec. 5.
“We’re rounding third base and heading home,” Hill said after the Las Vegas Stadium Authority board meeting on Thursday.
Hill and the LVCVA were so confident that the permits would be approved at that December meeting that three more meetings were canceled. The board will next meet on October 17, and a meeting was scheduled for December 12 as a “safety valve.”
The three documents that must be approved for the proposed $1.5 billion, 33,000-seat covered stadium on the Las Vegas Strip are the lease, the non-relocation agreement and the development agreement. The lease was submitted Thursday without a vote.
This agreement provides for an initial 30-year lease, which can ultimately be extended up to 99 years. The contract for the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders runs for 30 years, with no further terms.
Allegiant Stadium, home of the Raiders, opened in 2020. The A’s hope to open their stadium in time for the 2028 season.
“I think that was largely not envisaged in 2016 when we passed the law,” Hill said. “That information is not necessarily required in the law. It gives us choices. We talked about during the process that we’re going to get to 15 or 20 years and the parties involved are likely to reopen the lease and renegotiate.”
This will be the A’s’ final season in Oakland. They have agreed to play the next three seasons (with an option for a fourth) at a Triple-A stadium in West Sacramento, California. The A’s will share that facility with the River Cats, the Triple-A club of the San Francisco Giants.
The A’s have said they expect to spend $350 million in public funds instead of the full $380 million allocated to them by the Nevada state legislature.
The club has said it will fund $300 million of the stadium costs itself and raise the remaining $850 million from private capital. Hill said the A’s could present their financing plan at the October meeting.
