Oakland Athletics reveal updated ballpark renderings for Tropicana site

On Tuesday afternoon, we finally got the updated renderings of the Athletics' plans for their new ballpark in Las Vegas.

According to the team's update on Twitter, the Athletics have partnered with the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and HNTB Corporation during the design phase. BIG will reportedly serve as the primary design lead while HNTB will serve as the "sports and hospitality designer" and architect of record.

The renderings themselves look...interesting. The mockups were widely panned online by Athletics fans, as well as external MLB fans. Many mentioned the site's unusual resemblance of the Sydney Opera House, as well as the lack of a retractable roof that was initially promised by the A's side.

Athletics owner John Fisher went on the record about the project, walking back the initial claim that the stadium would have a retractable roof. Fisher stated that other stadiums with retractable roofs typically keep those roofs closed during the summer months, and that the Athletics were focused on creating a stadium that "felt like you were outside but that was above all comfortable every day of the year".

The renderings suggest that the stadium will contain a massive, cable-net glass window with views of the Las Vegas strip, as well as a jumbotron built into the roof of the stadium. There are no renderings of the hotel and casino complex that will be built on the same plot of land, at least as far as we know.

Is this project still happening?

It's still unclear whether these renderings fit on the currently allocated 9-acre plot of land the Athletics have to work with. The architects and the team claim that it will but the stadium itself looks quite large in the renderings, with included walkways and surrounding areas.

There's also the obvious question of how Athletics owner John Fisher plans to pay for the new park. We've written extensively about the topic, as have every other A's blog on the internet, and we're still no closer to a definitive answer on how Fisher will come up with his share of the financing required for this project.

If we want to shoot for a positive outlook here, its that MLB teams should be looking to embrace weird, unique stadium styles. This doesn't look much like any other MLB ballpark out there and in this writers opinion, that's a good thing.

It would still be preferrable to see them fail but at the very least they're trying to build something different, as opposed to building one of the cookie-cutter type parks we've seen built over the past two decades.

Ultimately, John Fisher and the A's have a long way to go from now until the expected opening of this new park. There's still a lot standing in the way of this project coming to fruition and the smart money is on Fisher finding a way to screw it up.