Las Vegas: Tropicana officials seek gaming license extension during Oakland A's ballpark development

Officials from Las Vegas Strip's Tropicana resort will request Clark County officials to maintain its gaming license active for a minimum of two years during an upcoming public meeting. The petition comes as the site of the now-closed historic property undergoes transformation into a Major League Baseball stadium and new hotel-casino.

Owned by Bally's, the management of the 67-year-old resort, which closed its doors last month, will petition the Board of Commissioners, in its capacity as the county’s Liquor and Gaming Licensing Board, to waive a regulatory requirement during an upcoming public meeting on Tuesday, Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. The request seeks to circumvent the suspension of the site’s gaming license due to its closure.

The application for closure outlines a deadline of April 1, 2025, for the completion of demolition and site clearance. This timeline is crucial to enable the Oakland Athletics to initiate construction on their proposed $1.5 billion, 33,000-seat ballpark. The application seeks a maximum of three years, inclusive of potential extensions, to finalize site clearing and facilitate stadium development.

“Bally’s has every reason to promptly reopen a new resort hotel when construction is completed. That said, the design, land use permitting and construction plan for the baseball stadium, as well as a year-long demolition project, must be accomplished before the company can pursue in earnest development of the new resort hotel. Thus, the anticipated duration of the closure is currently unknown," the application letter said, as per the report.

Meanwhile, ongoing pre-demolition efforts persist at the now-defunct hotel-casino, which ceased operations on April 2. Notably, the resort's porte-cochere facing Las Vegas Boulevard has already been dismantled using heavy machinery, with remnants of the structure left behind within a fenced area adjacent to the pedestrian walkway.

Clark County has already granted a commercial demolition permit for Bally’s on April 20, stipulating that the estimated $15 million implosion must occur before October 20.