According to a report from Alan Snel of Las Vegas Sports Biz, John Fisher and the Oakland Athletics have a meeting set for Monday afternoon to reveal their up-to-date ballpark renderings for the Tropicana Hotel site on the Vegas strip.
The most recent renderings that Fisher and team President Dave Kaval presented to the Nevada state legislature weren’t actual renderings of their stadium design, but rather a general idea of what the surrounding area might look like after being made into a ballpark.
In addition to the ballpark rendering reveal, John Fisher also has a public address scheduled for Monday afternoon where he is slated to speak about the Athletics’ relocation and the new ballpark.
With $380 million in public stadium money and @MLB's approval of moving to Las Vegas, Athletics scheduled to show renderings of planned baseball stadium on Strip at announcement Monday in #Vegas. A's owner John Fisher, architect at session w/ others.https://t.co/A6bfPNbuLi pic.twitter.com/PABdULa06o
— LVSportsBiz.com (@LVSportsBiz) November 30, 2023
Fisher has been notoriously quiet during his tenure as an owner, rarely speaking in public and essentially never answering questions from the media about anything at all. His comments at the owners meetings a couple of weeks back were the first of their nature in years.
As it currently stands, the Athletics have claimed the ability to build their new ballpark on a 9-acre plot of land at the Tropicana site. That would be the smallest plot of land for an MLB ballpark in the country, by a significant margin.
There have been lots of questions surrounding the A’s capacity to build a park on such a small amount of acreage, so it will be interesting to see the renderings and better understand the ownership’s vision for the park.
What will the new ballpark look like?
It had been rumored that the Athletics were eyeballing the Texas Rangers new stadium as a potential blueprint for their new park in Las Vegas. When the renderings are released on Monday, we’ll be able to see how true that rumor may have been.
In addition to Fisher, Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo, project architect Bjarke Ingals, and LVCVA tourism chief Steve Hill are scheduled to be present at the meeting.
The current plan for the Athletics is to play through their current lease at the Coliseum in Oakland, which runs through the 2024 season. Their 2025-2027 seasons are up in the air. At present, the Athletics do not have a place to play for those three seasons.
If the new ballpark project proceeds according to plan, the Tropicana Hotel will be demolished in late 2024, and new construction would start in early 2025. With no hiccups, the new park would expect to be open for the 2028 season.