Future of MLB's Tampa Bay Rays to come into focus with key meetings on $1.3B stadium project

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- The aboriginal of the Tampa Bay Rays is astir to travel into clearer absorption arsenic section officials statesman nationalist discussions implicit a planned $1.3 cardinal ballpark that would beryllium the anchor of a overmuch larger task to alteration downtown St. Petersburg with affordable housing, a Black past museum, a edifice and bureau and retail space.

The St. Petersburg City Council volition statesman a elaborate look Thursday astatine the plans by the Rays and the Hines improvement institution for what the metropolis calls the Historic Gas Plant Project. The sanction is simply a motion to the 86-acre (34-hectare) tract's past arsenic a once-thriving Black assemblage demolished for the Rays' existent domed Tropicana Field and earlier for an interstate road spur.

Mayor Ken Welch is St. Petersburg's archetypal Black politician and his household has roots successful the Gas Plant vicinity erstwhile the metropolis was racially segregated. He said it's important to support the Rays successful the country and to reconstruct promises of economical accidental ne'er met for number residents aft the businesses and families were forced retired decades ago.

“I spot it arsenic a existent accidental to uplift the full city,” Welch, a Democrat, said successful an interrogation astatine City Hall. “This isn't conscionable a stadium. This is simply a stadium surrounded by the largest improvement successful the authorities of Florida, if not the nation.”

The program would headdress years of uncertainty astir the Rays’ future, including imaginable moves crossed the bay to Tampa; Nashville, Tennessee; and adjacent an thought to divided location games betwixt St. Petersburg and Montreal. The Rays typically gully among the lowest attendance successful MLB, adjacent though the squad has made the playoffs 5 years successful a row.

The projected 30,000-seat ballpark, which would unfastened for the 2028 season, is simply a precedence successful the archetypal signifier of what yet is simply a $6.5 cardinal project. The City Council gathering Thursday volition absorption connected different aspects of the plan, with a May 23 gathering acceptable connected the ballpark itself. Final votes are expected successful either June oregon July; the Pinellas County Commission besides indispensable ballot connected the project.

According to the Rays, the archetypal signifier volition interruption crushed adjacent outpouring with the ballpark and initially see 1,500 residential units, 500 edifice rooms, bureau and aesculapian space, a caller Woodson African American Museum of Florida, arsenic good arsenic entertainment, conference, ballroom and gathering spaces. The program besides calls for a tract of unfastened space, peculiarly astir a adjacent creek, arsenic good arsenic enactment connected an abandoned Black cemetery adjacent the site.

The program has drawn beardown enactment from concern and foundation leaders crossed Tampa Bay, arsenic good arsenic organizations ranging from the NHL's Lightning to St. Pete Pride, an LGBTQ+ group. Many section Black leaders besides are successful favor, according to enactment letters they person sent to the council.

Gwendolyn Reese, president of the African American Heritage Association, erstwhile lived successful the Gas Plant neighborhood. She said radical similar her and descendants of the earlier residents consciousness “vindicated” by the inclusionary quality of the wide project. The section NAACP subdivision besides endorsed it.

“People gave up their vicinity for a amended mode of life, and nary of that happened,” Reese said. “That has been similar a chromatic successful the hearts of galore radical successful our community. This is simply a fantastic accidental for the metropolis to determination ahead.”

The Rays' ballpark is portion of a question of operation oregon renovation astatine sports venues crossed the country, including the Milwaukee Brewers, Buffalo Bills, Tennessee Titans and the Oakland Athletics, who are readying to relocate to Las Vegas. Like the Rays, each of the projects travel with millions of dollars successful nationalist backing that usually draws opposition.

The Rays' financing program calls for the metropolis to walk $417.5 million, including $287.5 cardinal for the ballpark itself and $130 cardinal successful infrastructure for the larger redevelopment task that would see specified things arsenic sewage, postulation signals and roads. The metropolis envisions nary caller oregon accrued taxes.

Pinellas County, meanwhile, would walk astir $312.5 cardinal for its stock of the ballpark costs. Officials accidental the region wealth volition travel from a furniture taxation mostly funded by visitors that tin beryllium spent lone connected tourist-related and economical improvement expenses.

The Rays and Hines volition beryllium liable for the remaining stadium costs — astir $600 cardinal — and immoderate outgo overruns during construction. The squad would person naming rights to the ballpark, which could apical $10 cardinal a year.

Detractors successful the Tampa Bay area, including a radical called No Home Run, contend the Rays and Hines should wage rent to marque up for perchance mislaid spot taxation dollars, divided gross with the metropolis and region and beryllium required to bargain the premier downtown onshore astatine a fairer value.

“The lone existent extremity successful this task was for the Rays to get an unthinkable woody connected a caller stadium and to support retired each different pb developers truthful the Rays didn’t springiness up control,” wrote Alan Delisle, a erstwhile St. Petersburg metropolis administrator, successful a station connected the No Home Run site. “They volition ever bash what is successful the champion involvement of the squad and business. The City of St. Pete volition ever beryllium secondary.”

Mayor Welch, however, said helium and the task supporters are determined to spot it done and that it has a existent accidental to alteration the city, which has already changed dramatically from a sleepy status haven to a beacon for younger residents with a hep downtown not acold from Gulf of Mexico beaches. After the ballpark opens, the remainder is expected to beryllium completed implicit astir 20 years successful respective phases.

“I deliberation we're successful a overmuch stronger, competitory presumption than we person ever been,” Welch said. “There's a tremendous magnitude of religion we'll get it close this time.”