The head of the stadium authority thinks the money will be there by December.
There will not be a meeting of the Las Vegas Stadium Authority on September 13th as originally scheduled because there still is a funding problem that needs to be resolved for a baseball venue to be built in the city. But Steve Hill, who is the president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, is optimistic that the owner of Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics franchise John Fisher will find at least three quarters of a billion dollars to help finance the project and sign three documents to begin construction on the stadium and all of that will be approved by December 5th. “We’re rounding third and heading for home,” Hill said.
The documents that need approvals for the planned $1.5 billion, 33,000-seat domed stadium on the Las Vegas Strip include a lease agreement, a non-relocation agreement and a developmental agreement. The lease deal calls for an initial 30-year lease that could be extended up to 99 years. Given that most ballparks today are obsolete within the structure’s first 25 years, it is highly unlikely that the stadium will still be around in 2127 if it opens in 2028. If Fisher puts the team in Las Vegas, somewhere around 2050, there will be rumbles that the stadium is old and needs to be renovated or a new venue needs to be built. It is just how it is in the stadium game. Fisher plans to spend about $300 million of his own money for the stadium. The other $850 million would come from private equity. Hill said it is conceivable that Fisher could have a financial plan ready by the stadium authority’s October 17th meeting. Nevada politicians gifted $380 million as seed money for the stadium leaving Fisher to find the rest of the money. The money is still not there.
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Steve Hill
