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Clark County Approves $15m Demolition Plan for Tropicana

  • Bally’s plans to demolish the Tropicana in September or October
  • A stadium for the Oakland Athletics will be built on part of the site
  • GLPI owns the land and Bally’s owns the Tropicana building itself
Andrew O’Malley

Tropicana Las Vegas sign
Bally’s has gotten approval from Clark County to proceed with the demolition of the Tropicana casino resort in Las Vegas. [Image: Shutterstock.com]

End of an era

The demolition of the iconic Tropicana casino resort on the Las Vegas Strip is getting closer and now Clark County has approved the permit application to implode the property. Bally’s Corporation just has to pay the $48,000 application fee and it will officially have its hands on the permit.

plans to raze the casino-hotel in either September or October

The demolition process will cost $15m and the approval is valid until October 20. Speaking to the Las Vegas-Review Journal, Bally’s Chairman Soo Km said that the company plans to raze the casino-hotel in either September or October. The only potential stumbling block would be any delay in the demolition company getting the necessary approval to proceed.

Big plans for the land

Part of the site will be the new home of MLB’s Oakland Athletics, which will to move to Las Vegas after the current season. The 33,000-seat ballpark will cost about $1.5bn to build and will encompass nine acres of the 35-acre site.

The Oakland Athletics have averaged just 6,234 paid fans in attendance across the first 13 home games this season as locals protest against the team leaving the city. The team has consistently been one of the worst draws in baseball for years.

While the team still needs approval from the Las Vegas Stadium Authority, the plan is to start construction in April 2025. The A’s play home games in Sacramento until the new Las Vegas ballpark is ready to go in 2028.

Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc. (GLPI) controls the land and Bally’s owns the Tropicana itself, leasing the land from the real estate investment trust (REIT). GLPI has committed $175m to demolish the Tropicana and to help build the ballpark; about $380m of the total cost will come from public funding following the passage of a bill last summer.

Closing its doors

The Tropicana was an iconic Strip property that had ties to the Mob, opening in 1957 and closing almost 67 years later on April 2. In the days before the property closed its doors for good, people were reportedly taking “anything that wasn’t tied down.”

Bally’s intends to develop a new casino resort on the rest of the site at some point in the future, although ongoing concerns about the company’s financial situation might dampen these ambitions.

People were stealing everything from casino chips to slot machine parts and chairs. The liquidators in charge of clearing out the entire building have listed thousands of items for sale.

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