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SALT LAKE CITY — Major League Baseball could come to Utah much earlier than anyone anticipated.
The Oakland Athletics executives are scheduled to visit Smith’s Ballpark this week as a potential temporary home before the team’s new Las Vegas stadium is ready, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Thursday, citing “a person with knowledge of the trip.” The team announced last year that it will move to Las Vegas, but its new Nevada stadium isn’t expected to be completed until 2028 and its lease in Oakland ends at the end of this season.
Andrew Wittenberg, a spokesman for Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, declined to offer specifics but confirmed to KSL.com Friday that the city is interested in letting the A’s play at Smith’s Ballpark while the team is between homes.
“Mayor Mendenhall has always said Salt Lake City is a big league city and thinks Smith’s Ballpark would be a great temporary home for the A’s. Even for a short time, MLB could be a catalytic element for the neighborhood,” he said in a statement.
Wittenberg added that the city cannot comment on “any ongoing conversations around Major League Baseball at this time,” but that the city is “very much look forward to the day when big league baseball is being played in Salt Lake City.”
The Las Vegas Review-Journal also reported that the A’s toured Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, California, on Thursday. The outlet noted that Las Vegas Ballpark, home of the Las Vegas Aviators, the A’s Triple-A affiliate, is in consideration, as is Oracle Park in San Francisco and Greater Nevada Field in Reno, Nevada.
But the timing with Salt Lake could align for both parties. Much like the A’s with Oakland, Salt Lake City’s lease with the Larry H. Miller Company, owner of the Salt Lake Bees, expires this year. The team’s final home game is slated for Sept. 22 before they move out to a new stadium that the company is building in South Jordan’s Daybreak community.
Redevelopment Agency of Salt Lake City officials are spearheading the effort on what’s next for the stadium; however, they acknowledge that any new uses for the stadium land could still be “a ways out” even if a final plan for the site were already selected.
Corinne Piazza, a senior project manager for the agency, said in a Ballpark Community Council meeting earlier this month that the stadium could still be used for festivals and events while future plans are finalized. Wittenberg said the A’s wouldn’t change the long-term future of the neighborhood.
“Mayor Mendenhall takes seriously her commitment to residents of the Ballpark neighborhood and is eager to move forward with a long-term strategy that prioritizes year-round activation of that property,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Miller Company is leading the effort to bring MLB to Salt Lake City on a more permanent basis. Their plan, supported by a coalition of prominent Utah leaders and residents, calls for a new stadium for a possible expansion team that would be located within Salt Lake City’s forthcoming Power District on the west side.
MLB is expected to begin exploring expansion on a wider scale this year.
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This article was originally published by a www.ksl.com . Read the Original article here. .