Funding in place to pay for final cost of $2B Strip ballpark, A’s president says

With the cost of the Athletics Las Vegas ballpark expected to rise to at least $2 billion, team owner John Fisher and his family have the funding in place to pay for whatever the final cost might be, according to team president Marc Badain.

Fisher has said on multiple occasions, including in June at the stadium groundbreaking ceremony, that the ballpark’s construction cost will likely end up near the $2 billion mark. Although the guaranteed maximum price on the project has yet to be set, Badain said the money will be there to foot the bill.

“Well, we have a budget, and we build contingencies into that,” Badain said Thursday following a Las Vegas Stadium Authority meeting. “John (Fisher) said what he said, and the financing is in place for that dollar amount.”

The public money that will be available for the project is capped at $380 million, with the Fisher family paying the remaining, outside of any investor contributions the team receives. The A’s signed Aramark Sports + Entertainment as its first stadium investor late last month, also naming the company the concessionaire of the stadium.

While Sports Business Journal previously reported that the investor deal included a $100 million equity investment in the team and a $75 million capital expenditure contribution, the A’s have declined to confirm the specifics of the deal.

Badain noted that the team will also set a guaranteed maximum price on the project “shortly” which is a requirement that needs to be met before public money is available to be used.

Vertical work ahead

While work behind the scenes on the budget and stadium design continues, work is moving ahead on the stadium, with a couple hundred workers onsite each day, Badain said.

Crews have been working on the site, which is at the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue, since late April with grading work, with activity on the site picking up in recent weeks. Nearly 600 foundation pilings have been driven into the ground, according to Badain, with multiple cranes having been erected on-site and the first concrete being poured.

With crews about 50 percent done with the deep foundational work, Badain expects concrete work to start to go vertical, and that work will be visible over the 10-foot-tall wall surrounding the 35-acre site where the Tropicana once stood.

“I would hope we start seeing that by the end of September, or early October,” Badain said. “Some of that prep work has already been done, but there’s obviously only so many things you can do until the permitting is in place. But as soon as we get that, we’ll see the concrete get poured, and some of the decks will get poured. There’s rebar in place, so you’ll get to see the foundation of the building start to take shape.”

Badain also expects the permit approval for primary steel work to be approved sometime before the next planned stadium authority meeting in November.

“The permitting process with the county has been outstanding,” Badain said.

With work now noticeable on the project with multiple cranes now visible from the street level, seeing all the activity taking place on the site and the project starting to come out of the ground is a great sight, according to Steve Hill, stadium authority chairman.

“You do three years of work to get to the point where you can start the work,” Hill said. “Seeing that start and the certainty that that brings, particularly to the public, is really beneficial.”

Former U.S. attorney appointed to oversee committee

The stadium authority appointed Jason Frierson as the chair of the Baseball Stadium Community Oversight Committee. Frierson, former U.S. attorney for Nevada and former Nevada Assembly speaker, is replacing the outgoing chair, Nevada State College President DeRionne Pollard, who has accepted a position in Washington, D.C.

The oversight committee, which first met in July, ensures the A’s meet certain community benefits requirements set forth in Senate Bill 1, the law that earmarked up to $380 million in public funding to go toward building the team’s Strip stadium. Requirements include hitting construction and stadium operations workforce diversity thresholds, providing livable wages to workers, and community and educational aspects.

The project is also required to contract 15 percent of work on the project to small, locally owned businesses, one the team said it is surpassing.

“We’ve picked up to 16 percent,” Badain said. “In terms of dollars, that’s 7 million additional dollars going to small and local businesses.”

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