One more legislative hurdle for Rays to secure new stadium

After two decades of what even he recently called “cockamamie schemes” to get a new stadium built for his Tampa Bay Rays, team owner Stuart Sternberg is tantalizingly close to making the dream a reality.

The team is set to go before the Pinellas County Commission Tuesday, July 30 for a vote on a measure to dedicate $312.5 million in bed tax money to the project.

That vote, which observers believe will pass, is the final step needed for the team to break ground on the new stadium — expected to open at the start of the 2028 baseball season.

If approved, it will bring to an end an era of failed plans, veiled and unveiled threats of relocation, political maneuvering and, at times, ridiculous sounding ideas.

And while there are many moving pieces that will be required to make what the team is planning a reality, there will only be two real questions that most outside the process will likely be focused on: When will the first ball game in the new park be? And will a new ballpark do anything to address the team’s embarrassing lack of attendance?

Those, of course, will be answered in time.

“We look forward to working with our Pinellas County partners on the next and final step in the process to secure the future of the Rays for generations to come,” Sternberg says in a statement. 

That statement was issued July 18, the day the team overcame probably the biggest hurdle it faced in its 86-acre redevelopment plan that includes the new stadium: The St. Petersburg City Council.

The council voted 5 to 3 to approve several measures that pave the way for the team to move forward with its plans.

The package included 12 agreements between the team, its development partner Hines and the city allowing the administration to execute the contracts and move forward. The agreements included the funding and details for the redevelopment of the Historic Gas Plant district and a stadium operating agreement.

The Gas Plant district was once a thriving Black neighborhood that in the late 1980s was razed and its residents displaced to make way for Tropicana Field.

The $6 billion project is expected to deliver more than 5,400 residential units; 1,250 workforce and attainable housing units; 1.4 million square feet of office and medical space; 750,000 square feet of retail space; 750 hotel rooms; and 14 acres of parks and open space. This along with the Woodson African American Museum of Florida and an amphitheater.

The city will put up $429.5 million that will go toward the infrastructure for the project and the stadium.

The cornerstone is the new $1.3 billion stadium for the team that will be built with about $600 million in funds from the city and Pinellas County and at least that much from the team. The team will also be responsible for all cost overruns.

(The acreage for the ballpark and two parking garages will be owned by the county which will lease it to the city. The city will then sublease it to the Rays for 30 years, with an option to extend that.)

With the city approving its part, the final piece to make the project a reality is the Pinellas commission voting to dedicate $312.5 million in bed tax money to the project.

The Rays have long looked to move from Tropicana Field which many observers say was antiquated by modern stadium standards before it even opened. Over the years the team has tried to work out deals for a new stadium, but the plans never came to fruition.

In 2018, it announced plans for an $892 million stadium to be built in Ybor City. But negotiations with the city of Tampa and Hillsborough County failed.

The Rays then seriously flirted with splitting its seasons between Tampa or St. Petersburg and Montreal, building a smaller stadium in each city. The plan was on its way to becoming a reality when MLB’s executive committee killed the plan Jan. 20, 2022.

With this deal in place, assuming Pinellas commissioners approve it, that team will stay in the city for the next 30 years — at minimum.

“It's always been my intention, and our intention, to have the team remain in Tampa Bay and specifically in St. Petersburg,” Sternberg said at the July 18 meeting.

“We have tried some cockamamie schemes, whether it was sail roofs and splitting seasons, looking around the area, but it was always my direct intention to keep the team in Tampa Bay.”