If the Oakland A’s–to–Las Vegas push that began three weeks ago seemed at the time like something A’s owner John Fisher and his stadium czar Dave Kaval more stumbled into than planned out carefully, it’s not seeming any less like that with the passage of time. In the latest developments:
- After announcing a “binding agreement” to purchase land for the stadium, A’s representatives are again reaching out to other local landowners about alternate sites, according to Nevada Independent “sources connected to the A’s and close to the negotiations.” That kind of language often means an official leak from the team, which would be an odd move unless execs are still trying to get the price down on their initial site (current cost: “undisclosed”), or maybe are trying to curry favor with some local elected official who would rather see the stadium elsewhere? Tea leaves hazy, ask again later.
- The Independent also reports that language of a stadium bill will “likely” be issued this week, and that “discussion around the bill’s latest iteration was centered on creating an ‘incentive program’ where tax dollars created by the stadium and its surrounding amenities would be directed into a fund to pay off $500 million in public bonds that would be issued by Clark County.” So if the mega-TIF would pay off the $500 million, does that mean the transferrable tax credits would be on top of that? Nevada Independent reporting hazy, try again later.
- LVSportsBiz further reports that “the A’s are looking to get an exemption from property taxes in the county,” which, wait, wouldn’t property taxes be collected and then redirected to help pay off the $500 million in county bonds? What is even happening here?
So far this proposed stadium has been consistently reported in the media as costing the public $500 million, but given that the only source we have for that is A’s hired-gun consultant Jeremy Aguero, that we now have three different moving parts for requested tax kickbacks with no firm figure for any of them, and that nobody has made public any actual concrete proposals, let’s stick with “at least $500 million” for now. And everyone get ready to do a deep, deep dive into whatever stadium legislation emerges, whether it’s later this week or the morning of the year’s final legislative session — it’s happened before!
First…. the Golden Baseball League…. then THE WORLD!!!!!
The incompetence of the A’s is incredible. Clearly they thought the “land deal” would just put more pressure on Oakland, but the Oakland mayor rightly told them to fuck off.
They had a $1 deal with the Rio owners, which would have sufficed, albeit on a fairly small plot of land. The rio site is really no better or worse then the Wild Wild West site, except for the Wild West site is owned by better sugar daddies with more political connections (the Fertittas). However, those same sugar daddies have an adversarial relationship with the most important political entity in the state (culinary union), and any stadium funding deal would have to be approved by Democrat majorities in Carson city and on the Clark county commission, culinary would not look kindly on that.
And now Kaval is attending a port of Oakland meeting in what appears to be an attempt to get Howard Terminal back on track. What a bunch of idiots.
The Fertittas? The guys who had stakes in UFC at one point?
Al, I am hoping that the Port Authority locks him out of the meeting (assuming they are allowed to lock anyone out).
These idiots truly are the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.
Calling what they do strategy is an insult to the concept.
And, NOW it’s at the soon to be demolished (and not at all ironically named) Tropicana, Las Vegas!
“Only” 395M – spin the wheel! Wheeee !
Yup, I’ll have a writeup in the morning. In the meantime, enjoy your 280 characters of snark:
https://twitter.com/fieldofschemes/status/1656052834981277697
The fun thing about the Tropicana site is that now they’re in bed with company that doesn’t have a lot of Vegas clout. Ballys are also involved in a Chicago casino that seems to be fools gold, a $1.6 billion development, in a state with very high taxes for gaming operators.
There’s also questions now regarding the Tropicana’s proximity to the airport.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-ballys-chicago-casino-soo-kim-20220507-lvzoaszk2vdflcxfhcfxfoxymi-story.html
So…. 9 acres? give or take 400,000 sq ft?
650 ft x 600 ft? (assuming the parcel is roughly square). How many seats is this thing going to have? 8,000?
Who is running this shitshow? The Union of Circus Clowns , Jazz Dancers and Nuclear Technicians?
(Bonus points if you get the reference…)
Target field sits on about 9 acres. It’s possible to do, but not sure how you do it with a retractable roof (lots of moving parts that require space).
They clearly have no plan. This whole thing is stupid.
It’s a little under 9 acres IIRC (Target). And it has absolutely no revenue generating (for the team) development around it (IE: the very kinds of things modern mallpark leasees want to build even more than the new ballpark). It’s unclear to me what the benefit of building a tiny ballpark with no surrounding commercial areas (at least team owned ones) would be?
It also cost about $550m all in as I recall (not including the transit improvements which were already on the drawing board). Not sure how much of that was specific to the congested site however.
As Ratto said, these guys can no longer even convince their own bathroom mirror they mean what they say.
Jazz Dancers, Pastry Chefs & Nuclear Technicians (Local 634)
Nice!
We asked @nevadadotvegas, which is working on major Tropicana/I-15 project in #Vegas, if the state agency has heard from Athletics about their ballpark proposal at Tropicana and Dean Martin just west of interchange. This is what we found out:
https://lvsportsbiz.com/2023/05/08/athletics-have-briefed-clark-county-on-tax-district-idea-for-ballpark-but-county-waiting-for-nevada-legislature-action-before-staging-public-discussion-in-as-stadium/
That’s the same LVSportsBiz article I linked to above, which is about the old site west of the interstate.