Tampa Bay Rays appear to backtrack on stadium project threats

After alluding for nearly a month that the agreement to build a new ballpark in downtown St. Petersburg was nearly dead, the Tampa Bay Rays have stepped back on their threats and say the deal is still on.

In a letter sent Friday to the chairwoman of the Pinellas County Commission, the team writes that it has fulfilled all of its requirements and is just waiting for commissioners to approve bonds to move forward with its plans.

The letter is signed by team president Matt Silverman and addressed to Kathleen Peters, the commission’s chair. She had written the team last week giving it a Dec. 1 deadline to declare whether it planned to move forward with a July agreement for the $1.3 billion ballpark or walk away.

“In response to your question regarding the status of the various agreements, they are in effect until a party terminates or outside dates are reached,” Silverman writes in the Nov. 29 letter.

Silverman writes in his letter to Peters that: “The Rays have fulfilled its obligations to date and continue to wait for decisions and actions by the City of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County.”

While that is not a ringing endorsement, it is an apparent step back from previous communications from the Rays since an Oct. 29 decision by the commission to put off a bond vote that would have provided the funding for Pinellas’ share of money to build the new ballpark.

Those communications include a Nov. 19 letter saying the team had halted work on the stadium and “suspended work on the entire project,” which includes the $6.5 billion redevelopment of the massive Historic Gas Plant District.

Just a few days earlier, team owner Stuart Sternberg said in an interview published in the Tampa Bay Times that the “future of baseball in Tampa Bay became less certain after” the county delayed the vote. He added that relocating the team “is not an unlikely conclusion” if the issue wasn’t worked out.

The county again delayed voting on the bond issuance Nov. 19 agreeing take the issue up Dec. 17. St. Petersburg’s City Council, which is also dealing with questions about major repairs needed to Tropicana Field after Hurricane Milton destroyed the stadium’s roof and caused severe damage inside, followed suit.

The team, for its part, has said the delay pushed back the start of construction which would result in the ballpark not opening until 2029, a year later than expected. That delay, the team wrote in the Nov. 19 letter, would lead “to significantly higher costs that we are not able to absorb alone.”

Complicating matters is that the team, whose lease on Tropicana Field is supposed to expire at the end of the 2027 season, has to play its games this season at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa at a reported cost of $15 million. Any further delays to the repairs of the stadium would mean more time away from home, significantly affecting revenue at a time that it is responsible for cost overruns for the new ballpark.

As has become the norm in public and written communications between the Rays and local officials, the latest exchange included a reality show-like tit for tat.

In the case of this most recent letter, Silverman, as Sternberg did in his interview, blamed the delay in part on politics, saying that the team fully expected for the bond vote to be held before two new county commissioners critical of the original agreement — Chris Scherer and Vince Nowicki — were voted onto the commission Nov. 5.

While not explicitly naming them, he writes that “the Rays have always made it clear that the viability of the project depended on having certainty about the project’s approval and funding prior to the 2024 November elections.”

“The Rays were willing to advance the project for 2028 delivery knowing that Pinellas County’s final approval would take place before the elections. We would not have gone forward with the project if a future Pinellas County Commission had the ability to revoke the approval we all celebrated in July or to unilaterally delay the project’s completion into 2029.”

"When it comes to honoring the spirit of the new ballpark agreements, it is Pinellas County not the Rays that falls short.

Silverman also disputed another commissioner’s public comment about a conversation with the team’s other president, Brian Auld.

Peters, in her letter demanding a status update, brought up a conversation that Pinellas County Commissioner Brian Scott had with Auld the night before the second commission meeting to approve the bonds Nov. 19.

Scott discussed the conversation publicly at that meeting.

Peters writes that Scott asked Auld to “make a public statement reaffirming commitment to the agreement and that the Rays would do what was necessary to try and remain playing locally.”

“Not only did Mr. Auld remain silent to quell concerns from the public,” Peters writes, “but he went on to complain to the commissioner that the Rays’ revenue was down and that anticipated project costs going up were putting the project in jeopardy.”

Silverman writes that he and the team “disagrees with the characterization of the conversation” between the two men.

“The conversation primarily concerned the near-term challenges to our business given the damage to Tropicana Field as well as the dynamics related to the location of our home games in 2025,” Silverman writes.

“Brian Auld did not waver from our commitment to the new ballpark project.”