Tropicana implosion date set, to feature fireworks, drone show

Tropicana Las Vegas owner Bally’s Corp. and the A’s will host an Oct. 8 celebratory event that will include a drone and fireworks show from Fireworks by Grucci, according to Bally’s Corp. The event will lead to the implosion of the Tropicana, scheduled to occur at about 2:30 a.m. on Oct. 9.

Clark County still needs to approve a permit application from Bally’s for the implosion. Permit approval can occur up to one week before the planned destruction.

Imploding the Rat Pack-era resort will allow work crews to clear the site before construction begins on the A’s stadium in April. The construction of the $1.5 billion ballpark is expected to take about three years and be ready for the A’s to begin play in Las Vegas for the 2028 MLB season.

Before construction can begin, the A’s must first finalize multiple agreements with the Las Vegas Stadium Authority and Clark County.

One of four agreements, the community benefits agreement, has been approved. The development, lease and nonrelocation agreements have been introduced and are pending approval.

Steve Hill, stadium authority chairman, has said on multiple occasions he expects the three outstanding agreements to be negotiated over the next few months and to be up for approval in early December.

The stadium authority will next meet on Oct. 17 to present updated versions of the three documents, with the board canceling planned meetings in September and November, which Hill said was an indication that things were moving in the right direction.

“Frankly, we’re having the meeting in October so we can get as close to a final document and allow the public and the board and everybody to review that and have any input that they would want to have,” Hill said following the Aug. 15 meeting. “We’re rounding third and heading for home here. There’s not many open issues left.”

The A’s also could present the team’s detailed stadium financing plan at the October meeting, something that is required before up to $380 million in public funds would be made available to the A’s to help fund the ballpark construction.

The public funding, approved last year, includes $180 million in transferable tax credits from the state and around $120 million in bonds to be taken out by Clark County. The county also will provide the A’s a $25 million credit to be used toward infrastructure work around the ballpark site.

A’s executive Sandy Dean previously detailed the team plans to use $350 million of the public funding, take on $300 million in debt financing and use $850 million in equity from team owner John Fisher’s family. The A’s also seek potential local investors in the ballpark project that could reduce the equity contribution from the Fishers.

The A’s have begun the development agreement process with Clark County and the process to secure entitlements for the Tropicana site. An A’s lobbyist met on Aug. 5 with Clark County Commissioner Jim Gibson in relation to the entitlements for the future stadium site, according to county records.

“The county has to go through a development agreement with the A’s, too. That has started,” Hill said. “At some point the A’s and the board have to ask Clark County to issue those bonds. But the timing of that hasn’t been determined. Because the A’s are going to be putting in a vast majority of the funding of the stadium, that bond funding doesn’t have to happen right at the beginning, but it could.”

By Mick Akers