Cashman Field to see 1 last game before decades-old stadium is gone forever

After nearly 80 years of hosting events and marking key moments in Las Vegas sports history, Cashman Field’s last hurrah is taking place this weekend before the facility is demolished. Las Vegas Lights FC will host Lexington FC on Saturday night in what the club is dubbing “Farewell to Cashman Night” as the game will be the last sporting event at the downtown Las Vegas stadium. Fans who attend the game will receive a Cashman Field replica to commemorate that night.

Originally built in 1947, the Cashman Field that people know today was completed in 1983, boasting around 10,000 fixed seats. The stadium was the home to the Triple-A Las Vegas Stars baseball team, which later rebranded as the Las Vegas 51s. The team moved to Las Vegas Ballpark in 2019, as it rebranded again as the Las Vegas Aviators. The Oakland Raiders played a preseason game vs. the Houston Oilers in 1964 at the old Cashman Field. The Oakland Athletics played the first six regular-season home games at Cashman to open the 1996 season, while renovations to the Oakland Coliseum were made.

The Lights of the United Soccer League have called Cashman home since 2018. The 43-year-old facility (79 years if you count the original version) helped usher in professional sports to Las Vegas. Now the city has the NFL, NHL, WNBA and will welcome MLB in 2028 and are on the verge of landing an NBA expansion team. Along with the teams, other more modern facilities have been built in the Las Vegas Valley over the past several years. Those include T-Mobile Arena in 2016, Las Vegas Ballpark in 2019 and Allegiant Stadium in 2020. The Athletics ballpark is being built on the south Strip, with a planned 2028 completion.

Cashman Field, Cashman Center and the Grant Sawyer building located across Washington Avenue, will be demolished to make way for a new housing development being developed by Lennar Homes. Plans call for the construction of over 1,000 townhomes in a gated community dubbed The Foundry. Homes in the neighborhood will be priced in the $300,000 range, according to a Lennar news release. Lennar broke ground on the project on Thursday, with plans for vertical construction to begin next October. “This is a great example of a public/private partnership that is going to benefit the entire community with high-quality, beautifully designed, living spaces that are attainable,” Las Vegas mayor Shelley Berkley said in a statement.

Sources: Las Vegas Review-Journal