Tropicana wants to keep gaming license active during A’s ballpark development

Tropicana officials will ask Clark County officials to keep its gaming license active for at least two years in an upcoming public meeting while the site is developed as a Major League Baseball stadium and hotel-casino.

Management of the now-closed 67-year-old resort on the Strip will request the Board of Commissioners, acting in its capacity as the county’s Liquor and Gaming Licensing Board, waive a licensing requirement during its Tuesday meeting that would suspend the site’s gaming license because of the closure.

The closure application states the demolition and site clearing must be done by April 1, 2025, so the Oakland Athletics can begin construction on its planned $1.5 billion, 33,000-seat ballpark. It asks for up to three years — two years as the maximum described, plus extensions — to clear the site and develop the stadium.

“Bally’s has every reason to promptly reopen a new resort hotel when construction is completed,” representatives wrote in the application letter. “That said, the design, land use permitting and construction plan for the baseball stadium, as well as a year-long demolition project, must be accomplished before the Company can pursue in earnest development of the new resort hotel. Thus, the anticipated duration of the closure is currently unknown.

Other post-closure, predemolition work continues at the hotel-casino, which closed April 2. The resort’s porte-cochere facing Las Vegas Boulevard was torn down with heavy machinery Thursday, leaving mangled metal framework behind a fence abutting the pedestrian walkway.

Clark County approved a commercial demolition permit for Bally’s on April 20, which requires the estimated $15 million implosion to occur before Oct. 20.

McKenna Ross is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Contact her at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on X.