When you pack dozens of the world's biggest attractions into 4.2 square miles, space becomes very tight.
So when something new gets built on the Las Vegas Strip, generally something old has to go away.
Sometimes those changes simply make sense. As land values have risen, kitschy shopping areas like Hawaiian Marketplace, which closed in 2022, and strip malls no longer have a place on the Strip. Land is simply too valuable for gift shops, motels, and other low-end uses.
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And while a few plots of land on the Strip sit empty, they're either tied up in legal proceedings or owned by someone with big plans that they haven't shared publicly.
Bottom line is that very little land is available, which explains why Hard Rock International will close the Mirage Volcano and build its signature Guitar Hotel on the property it acquired late last year from MGM Resorts International (MGM).
Hard Rock would probably love to keep a draw like the volcano, but something has to go if the company wants to achieve its full vision on the Strip.
That's the same dilemma facing Bally's Corp. (BALY) and Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics. In order to build the team's new stadium, The Tropicana, the second-oldest resort casino on the Las Vegas Strip, has to be destroyed.
Assuming that deal gets approved and the team can reach an accord on the public-financing portion of the agreement, then the Tropicana's days are numbered. Bally's has been coy about exactly when the iconic resort might see its final day, but new comments from an A's official have shed some light on that time line.
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Las Vegas's Tropicana Enters Its Final Days
Even if construction starts nearly immediately, the A's won't be able to play in their new ballpark until 2028. The team is expected to play in their AAA park in Sumerlin (just outside Las Vegas) until the new stadium is ready.
Had the team moved to the off-Strip site owned by Red Rock Resorts (RRR) it had originally considered, that site likely would have been ready for the team by 2027.
"With the site switching to 9 acres of the 35-acre Tropicana on-Strip site, the timeline was moved back one year because of the needed demolition of the Tropicana resort," the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
A representative for the A's, Jeremy Aguero, laid out a vague time line to the state legislature during a May 29 meeting.
“Obviously there’s a lot of work that happens between late 2023 and late 2024 or early 2025 when construction begins. The facility is the current location of where the Tropicana Hotel exists today. It has to be demolished in order to make way for this (stadium) and other development activity to take place,” he shared.
Bally's Corp. runs the Tropicana, which sits on land owned by Gaming and Leisure Properties (GLPI). Bally's has not given a time line for closing the Tropicana. Bally's Chairman Soo Kim has made clear that no decision about whether the property will be closed all at once or in phases has been made.
In any event Tropicana has to be removed from the site by late 2024 so construction can start. That puts the time line on the second-longest tenured property on the Las Vegas Strip at around a year (or maybe less).
Bally's does plan to build a new resort casino on the property after the stadium is completed.
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