As they’ve made plans to temporarily move to Sacramento and then relocate to Las Vegas, the A’s have a hard time lining up positive news items in succession, or at all. But they appear to have had a successful 24 hours.
The team on Friday introduced free-agent pitcher Luis Severino on a three-year, $67 million contract, the largest contract guarantee the team has ever given. A day earlier, the Las Vegas Stadium Authority approved key agreements that move the A’s closer to a groundbreaking of a stadium projected to cost $1.75 billion on the Las Vegas Strip.
The two events weren’t intentionally lined up, said Sandy Dean, a minority owner in the team and advisor to John Fisher who has been leading some of the Las Vegas stadium-building efforts.
“We’ve known that we wanted to work to bring our payroll up in anticipation of working to build a better team, and when out talking with free agents, things come together when they come together,” Dean said.
The stadium authority in Las Vegas green-lit development, lease and nonrelocation agreements for the A’s stadium, which ideally will be ready for play by 2028. The team has a 30-year deal to play in Las Vegas, and is forbidden from “agreements or substantive negotiations” over relocation until the team has been in the city for 23 years.
“When it comes to the formational documents, they’re all now complete,” said Steve Hill, chairman of the stadium authority. “It’s a really important, significant day for Las Vegas and I’m sure it is for the A’s, it’s a clear path now for them to move forward.”
Steps do remain, though, before the team’s targeted groundbreaking in the second quarter of 2025.
“This is a really important milestone in the project, and there’s still a good bit of work left to do,” Dean said. “The next critical path items are both ongoing refinement and advancement of the (ballpark) design, and us working through our entitlements and permits with Clark County, and that process really only got going in the last month. … We have some real work left to do with Clark County on their review of our plans.”
Some of the maximum $380 million in public money that’s been earmarked for the A’s stadium by the state legislature comes via bonds from Clark County. Those bonds aren’t going to be issued immediately, though, and may not be until after stadium construction begins. Hill said the Las Vegas Raiders started construction on Allegiant Stadium without those bonds, and it appears a purposeful sequencing of events. Dean said there’s “financial efficiency” to waiting.
“There’s another step before the stadium authority directs the county to issue bonds,” Hill said. “The A’s are required by law and in these agreements to post irrevocable cash or letters of credit or construction financing commitments.”
“The bond portion of the project is just a pretty small component of the total cost,” Dean said. “I think we’re probably going to conclude that the best way for us to kind of navigate the financing here is to not ask Clark County to issue the bonds until late in the project.”
Hill said the A’s waiting to produce those commitment letters did not give him any concern over the team’s ability to finance the stadium.
“No, not at all,” he said. “They have the ability to do the whole thing on their own. At some point, that could be soon, it could be later, the public contribution will kick in.”
(Top rendering: Negativ)
