A’s planning for potential 2028 ballpark opening without Bally’s planned mixed-use project

The Athletics are prepared to open their $2 billion Las Vegas ballpark in 2028 even if surrounding development planned by Bally’s Corp. is not completed.

Initial plans called for a 2,500-stall parking garage, a central utility plant and a 9-acre, multilevel plaza on the northwest corner of the 35-acre former Tropicana hotel site to be ready for the start of the 2028 Major League Baseball season.

Those plans have been altered. The parking garage and utility plant will now be built in two phases and the northwest plaza, which was to have a mix of retail, dining and entertainment, might not be ready for the start of the A’s tenure in Las Vegas, according to A’s vice chairman Sandy Dean.

The changes come as Bally’s Corp. is still figuring out the phasing and financing of its planned $1.19 billion mixed-use project, which would include the three shared areas with the A’s as well as a hotel-casino, additional dining, retail and entertainment areas and a 2,500-seat theater, Dean said.

Bally’s Corp. would need to apply for building permits before September and break ground on the northwest plaza in November to have it completed by the spring of 2028, according to Dean.

If the plaza isn’t completed in time, the A’s contingency plan would have fans use existing pedestrian bridges from Excalibur and MGM Grand to arrive at the ground floor via the stairs, escalators and elevators from the bridges. That would lead fans to the ground level, which is around 38 feet below the main entrance of the ballpark, where there will be shaded areas, vendors and places for fans to gather pregame.

“In Oakland, we had something called the Championship Plaza, and that was an outdoor area that had a festival-like atmosphere with food trucks and some outdoor games and some party lights and so on,” Dean said. “And here (Las Vegas), I think we’d hope that we could do more, but that’s something that’s going to come out of the design process.”

Fans would then take escalators to reach the main entrance, Dean said.

If the elevated plaza isn’t built by 2028, Dean said, the A’s still expect it to be built in a phased fashion, noting it was partly Bally’s vision to have the ballpark on a portion of the 35-acre site, which led the A’s to land on the Strip.

Stadium authority chairman Steve Hill had concerns with a temporary plaza plan and how it would play out once Bally’s was ready to build the permanent version after the ballpark is open. Hill asked for the A’s and Bally’s to have the process and design of what the temporary plaza would look like ready to present at the scheduled Aug. 20 stadium authority meeting.

“You come down from the bridges, walk across whatever is between there and the stadium, and then go up to a small plaza that probably looks pretty similar to what’s at Allegiant Stadium right now,” Hill said. “And that in and of itself is fine. but in order to facilitate the retail and the parking that you would ultimately need underneath that plaza area, you have to tear that up and build the permanent plaza at some point in the future. And that, I don’t know how necessarily that would work.”

The A’s ballpark construction is on time and on budget for a planned Feb. 29, 2028, completion date, with the team already spending $400 million on the project.