A’s Las Vegas ballpark: Media gets first tour of stadium under construction
Athletics’ president Marc Badain led the first media tour of the team’s under-construction $2 billion Las Vegas ballpark on Tuesday, giving a firsthand look at the progress being made on the project.
After six months of heavy construction on the site where the former Tropicana stood, the project is between 10 and 15 percent complete, Badain said.
Crews continue to build out the lower concourse of the 33,000-fan capacity stadium. Work is also beginning on the next level of the stadium above that, which will be composed of suites behind home plate. A green concrete cylinder at the site marks where home plate will be.
“You can see all of the progress that has been made over the last six months,” Badain said. “You’re starting to see the deck … the first deck and second deck of the building and frame around home plate going down the first and third base lines.”
Work is well underway on the six buttresses — concrete support structures — that will support the five pennant-inspired overlapping layers that will make up the facility’s metal roof structure, Badain said. Two of the support structures are completed with work on three others underway. The longest roofing panel will stretch nearly 700 feet from buttress to buttress.
The project remains on schedule and on budget, something Badain credits to joint-venture construction manager Mortenson-McCarty, who also managed the building of Allegiant Stadium.
“We showed a 4D rendering of the constructing timeline at the stadium authority board last week and I believe we actually hit the exact day (of where the progress on the stadium should be),” Badain said. “So, Mortenson-McCarthy, the JV (joint-venture) that’s building it, has been on time throughout. As I said we’re about six months into an about 31-month build.”
A’s players and members of the coaching staff toured the stadium site earlier this month and saw where their clubhouse will be located. The hydrotherapy pools the players will use for recovery have already been poured into the space.
“They’re blown away when they step on-site here,” Badain said. “When they come on-site and see where they’re going to be for the rest of their career and can see where their locker room is going to be. They know it’s going to be state of the art, the best building in all of Major League Baseball. They get pretty excited about it. They look forward to the next 24 months going by quick.”
The giant mound of dirt that was collected during the excavation of the site — which has been located in the center of the ballpark’s footprint for several months — has been condensed and is almost gone, Badain said. Crews have been repurposing the dirt while infilling different parts of the structure, he said.
Badain reiterated that the ballpark is taking up 9 acres of the 35-acre site, although at times the footprint could look like it’s taking up more of the site. Bally’s Corp. has plans for a mixed-use project that includes a hotel-casino, dining, shopping and entertainment spaces for the remaining 26 acres.
Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X.
