The Tampa Bay Rays announced a historic agreement to redevelop the Historic Gas Plant District and build a new ballpark for the team in September 2023.
After months of back-and-forth with the City of St. Petersburg, Pinellas County, the team, and their development partner Hines, parties reached a stadium agreement in July.
St. Pete’s Mayor Ken Welch said the agreement to redevelop the district was 40 years in the making, when Tropicana Field was built and displaced people living in the district.
“Residents and businesses were forced to relocate with the promise of jobs, opportunity, and equitable development, which did not materialize,” a press release said.
But nobody expected Hurricane Milton to rip through the area months later and shred the roof of the Rays’ current home, Tropicana Field.
The city and county are responsible for putting up over $600 million for the ballpark. However, with votes to approve funding delayed, what seemed like a sure deal before is now a bit more complicated.
The city approved its portion of the funding earlier this month, and soon the county will decide.
But how that vote will go remains up in the air.
The Rays are the only party that can back out of the stadium agreement with an official termination notice.
If the county votes yes on the bonds to pay for the ballpark, then it will be up to the team on how to proceed.
Pinellas County Commissioner Vince Nowicki was elected this past November. He’s been vocal about his criticism of the stadium agreement.
“The current deal and the current form is terrible,” he said. “Absolutely atrocious for the residents and the taxpayers.”
Pinellas’ portion of the funding will come from the Tourist Development Tax, or Bed Tax, which cannot pay for “many county projects or services like law enforcement or roads,” according to the county.
However, it can go toward capital projects and replenishing sand dunes along the beaches, something Nowicki said the tax money should go to.
“Beach nourishment (and) dune restoration out on the beaches, those are in critical states right now that we need to fix and repair and have a plan for fixing and repairing them long term,” he said. “And we need to look at long-term investments, maybe jetties, seawalls, other things out on the beaches.”
“Just not constantly spending $25 million, $50 million in beach nourishment every two to three years because we get a storm,” Nowicki added.
The League of Women Voters of the St. Petersburg Area’s Robin Davidov had similar sentiments.
She says on top of an unfair deal, Hurricane Milton showed the city’s need to update old and outdated water systems – something that could run upwards of $5 billion.
“So then the question is this: do we want to spend tax dollars subsidizing a private-use stadium? Or do we want to use tax dollars to fix our very antiquated yet very critical water wastewater system?” Davidov said.
And by funding the ballpark, Davidov said a big hole would form in the amount of available money to fix important infrastructure.
“We are never opposed to building a stadium,” she said. “We think having a stadium is fine, but this current deal is so lopsided, so unbalanced in favor of the Rays, that it needs to be renegotiated.”
So, what’s the deal?
Economist Abby Hall Blanco from the University of Tampa said the deal’s projected financial benefits just aren’t realistic.
“The literature here is really consistent when asking the question, ‘Do these deals tend to economically benefit the locations or the cities in which they’re placed?’ The simple answer to that question is no,” she said.
While stadium projects are nothing new, Blanco said the agreement looks a little different from some of the others she’s seen. Here, the Rays will keep revenue, concessions, naming rights, and broadcasting rights.
“In other stadium deals, there are some type of revenue sharing, some type of other agreement that would allow the city to recoup some of the investment from those types of activities,” Blanco said. “That’s not present here.”
Questions have also been raised if it makes sense to fix the Tropicana’s roof if they will just turn around and tear it down.
In the current 30-year use agreement for the Trop, Nowicki said the city is contractually obligated to repair it.
Instead of building a completely new stadium, the commissioner said he spoke to Mortenson developers who told him they could fully renovate the team’s current home for about $700 million.
“Well, if the Rays are already paying $700 million, why don’t the county and the city, we just chip in a little bit, bring down our cost, not have to have as much debt, and then they can get a fully renovated Tropicana Field with a brand new roof,” Nowicki said.
But fans are worried the Rays will leave the region if they don’t get a new stadium.
And Brian Fox said the team leaving could devastate the whole area.
“We want to see the Rays stay,” he said. “I mean, the number one Tampa Bay Rays. You know it’s, that’s the number one priority.”
Fox is responsible for creating the Tampa Bay Rays Fan Club on Facebook about 13 years ago. The group has since gained over 25,000 members.
But Nowicki said the team’s current contract has a non-relocation clause, which, if broken would cost the team hundreds of millions of dollars.
“So everyone likes to say, ‘Oh, the rays are going to leave, the rays are going to leave,'” he said. “Well, they can’t even talk to anybody else about leaving until 2028.”
A commissioner and fans spar over the stadium
Fox said the Facebook group members want to see the stadium built and feel “anger and frustration” over the delays in voting.
“The initial response back in July when they approved it was, everyone was ecstatic,” he said. “I mean it’s an amazing plan.”
Fox said the commissioner recently tried to “infiltrate” the Facebook fan group and “was just going to do his best to troll comments and create chaos,” in an email to WMNF.
“Too much potential for things to get ugly and out of hand,” he said. “We also want (commissioner’s) comments to go through proper channels and for (Nowicki) to respond to all the emails that have been sent.”
But Nowicki said he was just responding to posts tagging him on Facebook with concerns about the deal.
“They literally declined an elected public official and then blocked me,” he said.
And Nowicki said some of the people he responded to don’t live in Pinellas.
“How much money do they want to put up to fund it? Because their taxes aren’t going to go up. Their infrastructure isn’t failing. So that’s great that they come here four to five times a year to watch a baseball game, but I’m here 365 days a year,” he said. “I plan on raising my family here.”
“And so, I don’t really think it’s fair for people in Sarasota or other parts of the state to be whipping people up into a frenzy and then not even allow for an elected official who’s getting tagged on Facebook to comment and engage with constituents,” he added.
The commissioner said he receives emails all the time from people who want the commission to vote one way or another. In his responses, he asks them if they are also writing to the Rays to pitch in more money because “we’re increasing the value of their franchise by hundreds of billions of dollars.”
“But yet you’re okay with $1 billion tax burden when my generation and future generations are going to be crippled with high bond debt and failing infrastructure,” he said. “And people normally don’t reply back to me when I send them that.”
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