Joe Mock
Posted 12/3/24 All rights reserved
Four months ago, fans of the Tampa Bay Rays were feeling giddy that their team would soon have a state-of-the-art facility without having to leave St. Petersburg.
So much can change in a short time.
The team intended to continue calling the much-maligned Tropicana Field home until a glorious replacement would open next door in 2028. Since the framework of a deal was solidly in place, all that was required was the formality of votes by the City of St. Pete and Pinellas County, both of which indicated in July their willingness to approve the plans and the funding.
Then came Hurricane Milton on October 9. The storm not only damaged the Trop, but possibly doomed its proposed replacement, leaving the franchise with both short-term and long-term dilemmas.
What happened? Let’s go over this point by point.
Why did the Rays need a new ballpark in the first place?
Whenever you see a ranking of the 30 Major League ballparks, two are always at the bottom: the Oakland Coliseum and Tropicana Field. Both are sorely lacking in fan amenities and modern social spaces. The A’s have already played their last game at the Coliseum, as they hope to move into a new park in Las Vegas in 2028. The Rays have been working earnestly to obtain a new park since 2007, and until last month, they thought they had a plan in place to do so.
What were the plans that would result in a new stadium?
After the Rays assessed the viability of building a new stadium in various locations around Tampa Bay, a plan came together for a new domed stadium to be built on ground adjacent to Tropicana Field and its parking lots. The stadium would anchor a mixed-use development in an area referred to as the Historic Gas Plant District. The redevelopment of this area, to be overseen by the Rays and their development partner Hines, would include hotels, offices, shopping and housing, and cost roughly $6.5 billion.
If it ever gets built, the stadium itself will have a fixed roof – although much higher than the Trop’s ridiculous catwalks – and beautiful group and luxury spaces. Populous is the architecture firm that designed the showplace. The $1.3 billion beauty is slated to be at the very center of the new development. (See rendering courtesy of Populous.)
In July, the city and county both approved the plan, but without actually voting to approve the sale of bonds to pay for the construction — although those votes appeared to be a mere formality. The votes to issue those bonds were scheduled for the week of November 18th … but as you’re about to read, things didn’t go the way the Rays envisioned.
Since the stadium was insured, why don’t they take the insurance money and repair the roof?
The tattered Teflon-covered-fiberglass segments barely hanging to the metal supports of the Trop’s roof became a symbol of Hurricane Milton’s wrath. Within days, the city had the stadium’s damage assessed. The repairs would take over a year and cost $56 million, far exceeding the roughly $25 million of insurance coverage.
So what if the Trop now lacks a roof? Why can’t they simply play there anyway?
The stadium was designed with a dome, and as such, was never intended to be open to the elements. This meant there was no drainage system for the downpours that frequent the Gulf Coast of Florida. Adding such a system now would be prohibitively expensive.
Further, all areas within the facility sustained damage. The logic of making repairs plus adding a drainage system for a stadium about to be replaced makes little sense. Perhaps they’ll decide to spend some of the insurance money on repairing the Rays’ offices there so they’ll have a place to operate (as you’re about to read, those offices would be 22 miles – and a ton of traffic — away from their home games), but we’ve likely seen the last baseball at the Trop.
Regardless of the long-term status of a new stadium, where will the Rays play in the meantime?
The Rays wanted to remain in the same market, so they struck a deal to play their 2025 home games at the New York Yankees’ spring training park in Tampa. This will mean that the Yanks’ Florida State League team will be sharing Steinbrenner Field with the Rays during the regular season.
After the team made the announcement about playing in Tampa, MLB altered the Rays’ 2025 schedule to play more home contests early in the season. That will limit the number of blistering summer games in the open-air park – but will mean some monster mid-season road trips.
Has a big-league team ever played in a Minor League park?
Yes, but not often. The Rays played two series of regular-season games at Walt Disney World near Orlando in 2007 and 2008. Other big-league clubs have played games at their minor-league affiliates occasionally, but that is less common now than in decades past.
The Rays won’t be the only MLB team calling a Minor League park home in 2025, as the A’s will start a three-year stint in Sacramento’s Triple-A park starting March 31.
Did Pinellas County change its mind on supporting the new stadium?
It appears that way. The Rays needed funding from the county as well as the city to build the $1.3 billion stadium. All parties celebrated the county’s approval of an agreement on July 30, 2024 to provide $312.5 million in bonds to go toward construction.
However, the results of the hurricane and the election on November 5 altered the situation radically.
Following a delay of the vote to approve the construction bonds on October 29, the commission postponed the vote a second time on November 19. Further, commissioner Dave Eggers – a longtime opponent of the deal – accused the Rays of failing to follow protocols by choosing to play the 2025 season outside of Pinellas County in Tampa.
Rays president Matt Silverman disputed the allegations in a terse letter to the commissioners on November 29, claiming they did consider the spring training parks in Clearwater and Dunedin (both in Pinellas County), but found them both to be unworkable. He added (in bold type no less) that “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 …”
The battle lines between the county and team have been drawn. But are things rosy with the city?
Does the city of St. Pete still support the deal?
Apparently not. After voting to approve the Gas Plant redevelopment on July 18, 2024, the city council scheduled a vote on issuing $287.5 million in construction bonds for the stadium on November 21. In the days leading up to that vote, the Rays provided a letter to the city stating that they would view any delay in their vote as an indication that the deal was dead.
For reasons similar to the county (election results and hurricane damage to deal with), the city delayed their vote on issuing bonds until early in 2025. The Rays immediately ceased any further work on the architecture and engineering for the new stadium.
So why don’t the Rays simply wait this out and plan for a new stadium to open in 2029 or later?
In the agreement in July, the Rays pledged to pay for any construction costs in excess of the city’s and county’s contributions. The team feels if the opening of the new facility is delayed past 2028, construction costs could be $100 million higher, plus they would miss out on the significantly higher revenues a brand-new venue would generate (they’ll likely be sharing a small spring training park in the meantime remember). To the Rays’ ownership, this combination would be far more than the small-market team could endure.
If there isn’t going to be a new stadium next door to the Trop, will the Rays stay in St. Pete?
Not likely, because they would still have to deal with the city government. Just as they’ve done during the last decade when weighing where to build a new park, they are likely to first look at Tampa. If Tampa or some other suburb in Hillsboro County isn’t willing to pay a substantial amount toward a new ballpark, the team will examine cities that have been longing for a big-league club – like Nashville, Portland, Salt Lake City, Montreal and Orlando. One way or the other, they will get a new ballpark … as will the A’s and Diamondbacks. The question is where these new parks will be.
My guess at the outcome?
A major factor in the acrimony between the Rays and the city of St. Pete – that isn’t often mentioned in the reporting on the standoff — is that the team controls the development rights for the Gas Plant District. You know, the place where over $6 billion will be spent. And the team claims it has already invested $50 million on planning the development and stadium.
It is my best guess that the city and Rays will reach a compromise where the city contributes more and the team agrees to a later delivery of a new stadium. Neither side will be happy, but they will both declare victory. But this is only my guess.
Keep in mind that the redevelopment of that 86 acres will be the biggest project in the history of Pinellas County. And a delay on the ballpark will allow the two governmental entities to provide the necessary attention to the widespread hurricane damage before approving money for a baseball stadium.
But for right now, Hurricane Milton generated an ill wind between the Rays and the two governments.
Improbable and unlikely?
The Tampa Bay Times’ John Romano has followed the Rays’ stadium saga for years. In a column on November 27, 2024, he described the likelihood of a new ballpark in the Tampa Bay area like this: “Improbable, unlikely, desperate odds.”
If all of this hasn’t given you a headache (plus you like conspiracy theories), consider this: the language in the agreement for Las Vegas to help build a new big-league ballpark on the site of the former Tropicana casino hotel never mentions the A’s. In other words, it isn’t team-specific. It uses the name of a shell company that represents the A’s (there’s also a fascinating clause that will allow the A’s to bail from any commitment if they are ever the target of a tax).
Could the Rays swoop in with a better offer and pluck those hundreds of millions of dollars away from the A’s, giving the Rays a new park on The Strip by 2028 – the same year their new stadium in St. Pete was originally tabbed to open?
As one baseball-industry insider told me, when it comes to which team will be lunging at which city’s offer of a new stadium, every conceivable – and inconceivable – option is possible. And there are many who feel the A’s will never make it out of Sacramento, because California’s capital city will entice the A’s to stay in the market with a new big-league park – one that would be a lot cheaper to build than a covered state-of-the-art venue on the Vegas Strip.
The odds of the Rays ending up in Vegas are improbable and unlikely … but imagine the irony of the franchise moving from Tropicana Field to the site of the Tropicana hotel!
The headlines will write themselves.
Let us know your thoughts on this situation in the comments below.