A’s Vegas ballpark price tag could grow before construction begins

Before construction on the Athletics’ Las Vegas ballpark begins, it’s possible the estimated cost for the project could rise.

With construction costs rising there is a chance that the $1.5 billion price could increase, according to Las Vegas Stadium Authority Chairman Steve Hill.

The Athletics’ ballpark contractor, Mortenson-McCarthy, will eventually set a guaranteed maximum price for building the stadium.

“We’ll have that number and then we’ll be able to do the math,” Hill said Thursday after the stadium authority meeting. “If it’s a $1.6 billion stadium and the public is going to put in $350 million, then the Fishers will have to put in the balance. It is 75 (percent) or 80 percent funded by the Fishers and 20 (percent) or 25 percent funded by public funding.”

The breakdown is at least $850 million from A’s owner John Fisher’s family, $300 million in debt taken on by the A’s and at least $350 million of the available $380 million of public funding, made possible by the signing of Senate Bill 1.

Last week, Hill said he had the opportunity to review the Fisher family finances, as did a third party, and he has no doubt the family has the equity needed and is willing to provide that funding for the ballpark.

“They’re going to do this,” Hill said. “It’s going to happen.”

Construction start date wiggle room

The A’s plan to begin construction on the ballpark as early as April, but the team has some leeway if it takes a bit longer to get work on the project started. The ballpark will take about 31 months to be constructed, similar to that of the Raiders, Hill said.

“They (A’s) have a little more time, so the start date of April isn’t as critical as it might sound because that is 36 months before they would play in the stadium,” Hill said. “I’m sure they want to be done with the stadium a month or two before the season would start, to shake it out and make sure everything works well and all that kind of thing. But they do have some flexibility in the time frame of the construction cycle.”

Trio of documents

At Thursday’s stadium authority meeting nearly finalized drafts of the lease, nonrelocation and development agreements were presented and published, with plans to approve the trio of documents at a scheduled Dec. 5 meeting. The documents were presented Thursday and won’t be voted on until December, to give all board members and the public ample time to review the hundreds of pages of documents and to air any questions or concerns they might have, Hill said.

“We’ll respond to those,” Hill said. “It may be that those concerns have been thought out and addressed already, but if we get that kind of input, we’ll certainly take it seriously. Those changes may need to be made between now and Dec. 5, but that’s the purpose of providing this much time between those documents being published (Thursday) and the date they will be approved.”

Show me the money

The A’s will present their financing plan, to prove they are able to pay for their $1 billion-plus portion of the project, to the stadium authority at either the Oct. 31 meeting or the Dec. 5 meeting, Hill said. That is needed for the stadium authority to approve and sign off on the three remaining agreements.

Before the public financing is made available to the A’s, the team will need to possess all the required funding and transfer it over to a third party in order for Clark County to issue the $120 million in bonds they are responsible for tied to the public funding.

“Then in order for the (stadium authority) board to ask the county to issue the bonds, that money actually has to be transferred over to a third-party where that’s either cash, a letter of credit from a third-party that is irrevocable, or it is construction loans from a bank that is irrevocable, that add up to the amount that is necessary for the Fishers to fulfill their commitment.”

Draft deed delayed

The draft deed for the Athletics’ 9 acres at the Tropicana site that was planned to be presented Thursday, was pushed to be heard at a special meeting set for Oct. 31. The item was held to give Tropicana site landowner, Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc. (GLPI), more time to review the draft deed, since they just received it, Hill said.

The A’s, who will build the stadium, Bally’s Corp., which leases the land from GLPI and plans to build a new integrated resort on the remaining acreage of the 35-acre site, and GLPI are all included in the deed process with the stadium authority.

“That document has largely been put together but in fairness the landowner, GLPI, didn’t see the last version of that until Sunday and they wanted a little bit more time in order to review it,” Hill said. “The right thing to do is to allow them that time. We want everybody to feel comfortable with that document and so we gave them a couple of weeks. I’m sure we’ll have a little bit of conversation between now and then.”

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X.