A’s look to start work on Las Vegas ballpark ahead of agreement with county

While the Athletics’ Las Vegas ballpark is still years away from opening, team officials are pushing to start preliminary work in order to keep the project on track for the 2028 MLB season.

On Tuesday night, the Paradise Town Advisory Board OK’d several site design aspects and waivers of development standards that may help streamline some of the work. Those waivers include parking requirement reductions, reduced landscaping guidelines, traffic mitigation plans and the ability to store construction materials on the Tropicana site where the ballpark will be built.

Clark County’s comprehensive planning department also listed a condition that would allow a grading permit to be issued before a development agreement with the A’s is in place.

Last week, the A’s filed for a commercial grading permit, which would let the team to start work on the $1.75 billion, 33,000-fan capacity stadium. The process would include site excavation, some underground utility work and initial foundation work ahead of the team entering into a development agreement with the county.

Similar to Allegiant Stadium process

Newly hired A’s president Marc Badain said that’s something the Raiders did during the early stages of the construction of Allegiant Stadium. At the time, Badain was president of the Raiders and led the stadium efforts.

“Similar process to Allegiant, we did some things in phases that same way and I’m sure we’ll follow that same procedure,” Badain said Tuesday night after the advisory board meeting.

Clark County Commissioner Jim Gibson, whose district encompasses the future A’s ballpark, said last week that he expects that the county will work with the A’s on the potential phased work approach, while hammering out a development agreement with the MLB club.

“We know there are things that need to be done first and more quickly,” Gibson said last week. “We’re going to see building plans in due course, but we’re going to get groundbreaking done there in late spring, early summer. That’s because we’ve got a deadline. It’s not just the A’s that have a deadline; we have a deadline on us. It’s can we do this in that time, and we will.”

The A’s would be responsible for paying for all project work before the development agreement is in place and the entitlement process is completed.

Timeline

The A’s previously said work is expected to begin between April and June under a 31-month to 33-month work schedule. If the project starts in June and takes 33 months, the ballpark would be completed in March 2028.

Along with the development agreement, the A’s also must complete the entitlement process with the county.

That’s up for final approval at an April 2 Clark County Commission meeting. The town advisory board serves an advisory role to the county commission.

Tuesday’s meeting marked the first public meeting with a Clark County board regarding the project. The A’s and their lobbyists have been meeting with the county in private since the process began, sorting out details to get to this point.

“It seemed positive, but this will be the first of many meetings like this (with the county),” Badain said. “Our team was extremely well prepared, as you heard in their decision. They were pleased with what they saw. They were pleased with the answers to their questions, so we’ll continue to move forward.”

The A’s plan to host various events at the ballpark and must obtain permits for live entertainment, recreational, office, vocational training, outdoor dining and drinking, outdoor market, and mobile food truck vendors.

The 955,100-square-foot, six-story ballpark will feature a round footprint, with 30,000 fixed seats and room for 3,000 standing-room-only fans.

Reduced parking waiver

The A’s are also asking for a reduction in the required parking spaces, from 7,650 to 2,470. Those spots would be located in a parking garage on the site’s southeast corner.

That reduction request comes after a study from transportation consultant Kimley-Horn listed 49,000 parking spots within walking distance of the ballpark. That would make it the only urban MLB stadium to have more parking within walking distance than the seating capacity at the stadium, the study noted.

“As we studied this, there’s certainly a science and a thought process of having more distributed parking. A little bit more spread out is actually better for not only the person that coming to the game for that game day experience, but also for the traffic in and around the ballpark,” Jennifer Lazovich, an attorney with Kaempfer Cromwell who represents the A’s, said during the meeting.

To ensure smooth traffic flow around the stadium on game days, the A’s plan to reconfigure the intersection of Giles Street and Reno Avenue, just south of the ballpark. Plans also calls for a new pedestrian bridge for one of the main exits from the stadium to Giles.

Ride hailing and taxi cabs, public buses, walking and the Las Vegas Monorail mark other modes of available transportation that could support the reduced parking request.

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