With the $20-million sale of the Las Vegas 51s (Class AAA; Pacific Coast League) completed, the new owners are pitching a new ballpark in suburban Summerlin as the ideal way to revitalize the franchise.
The 51s are mired in a rundown facility, Cashman Field, and efforts to bring a new ballpark to Las Vegas over the last decade have fallen short. With Derek Stevens forced to sell the 51s because of his ownership of a casino, new owners Howard Hughes Corp. and Play Ball Owners Group (which includes Steve Mack, Bart Wear and Chris Kaempfer) are using the Vegas dead end to pitch suburban Summerlin as the perfect place for a state-of-the-art MiLB ballpark.
Howard Hughes Corp. is developing a new lifestyle mall in Summerlin near the Red Rocks Resort and wants to place a new ballpark in it for the 2015 season.
The 16-20 acres of land the stadium is proposed for will be donated by Howard Hughes Corp. and is valued at $40 million, Mack said. The stadium will seat about 8,000 to 9,000 and will be the centerpiece of a village that includes restaurants, shops and plenty of entertainment options for fans before and after games.
“We are going to have 140 stores and 17 restaurants just in the retail side, and that’s not even the amenities at the stadium,” Mack said.
Mack said the project would cost about $60 million. The group’s plan is for it to be a partnership among Las Vegas, Clark County and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, hoping to secure bonds to partially pay for the project. Since they just became owners, talk with those officials still have to be arranged. The land is part of the county, mere feet from the Las Vegas boundary.
RELATED STORIES: Future of Vegas baseball in Summerlin?; Will new 51s lease yield new Las Vegas ballpark?; Short-term Cashman Field lease approved; future of ballpark still in doubt; Vegas delays 51s lease; future of Cashman Field in doubt
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