01-04-2025
With stadium deal dead, Rays free to find another home after 2028
The celebrated agreement to build a $1.3 billion stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays near downtown St. Petersburg expired at midnight.
Alizza Punzalan-Randle, St. Petersburg's managing director of communications and community engagement, confirmed the Rays did not submit any last-minute documentation to move forward with the stadium or the Historic Gas Plant District redevelopment project by the end-of-Monday deadline. That means the sweeping deal promising $6.5 billion of new development is dead just eight months after it was approved and heralded by the St. Petersburg City Council and the Pinellas County Commission.
Rays owner Stuart Sternberg announced March 13 that the team would not move forward with the project. Under terms of its agreement with the city, the Rays had to show that they had $700 million in hand for the stadium and also prove that they had done enough work, such as getting permits, to unlock public funding for the project. The deal remained in effect until either the Rays sent a termination letter or the March 31 deadline passed.
A spokesperson for the Rays declined to comment.
St. Petersburg spokesperson Samantha Bequer said in a statement that with the Rays not meeting those conditions, 'the new stadium agreements automatically terminate.' She said the city is focused on moving forward with Tropicana Field repairs according to the original 1995 agreement still in place between St. Petersburg and the Rays, which puts it on the city to 'diligently pursue' repairs after Hurricane Milton shredded the Trop's roof. The council will vote Thursday on spending $22.7 million to replace the dome covering.
The council approved a dozen contracts outlining the stadium and Gas Plant terms in July. Now the accompanying sale of 65 acres of public land to the Rays and development partner Hines in exchange for a $50 million community benefits package is no longer in effect. That included jobs, opportunities for minority-owned businesses and $10 million for a new home for the Woodson African American History Museum of Florida.
The team non-relocation agreement that would lock the Rays in St. Petersburg for another 30 years also is canceled. The Rays are now free to negotiate with other cities in Tampa Bay or elsewhere to play home games after 2028, or whenever the current agreement expires.
The original agreement between St. Petersburg and the Rays was set to expire in 2027, but is extended one year for every year Tropicana Field can't be used. The Rays are playing this season at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa and are expected to be back in the Trop next year through the 2028 season.
A change to that agreement that now says the Rays are not due any profits from redevelopment of Trop land is still in effect.
St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch said his vision of rebuilding the Historic Gas Plant District will continue with or without the Rays. That includes erecting condos, affordable housing, entertainment and office space on land that was home to a segregated Black community before it became the Trop. He said his team is still working on those plans, which may not need to be restarted entirely. The city can't break ground on every parcel, as it must provide a stadium and parking to the Rays through the 2028 season.
The downtown community redevelopment area, known as the Intown CRA, also is staying in place. The council voted to extend it 10 years through 2042. In a redevelopment area, increased tax dollars generated by new construction or rising values are reinvested there.
Council member Richie Floyd asked on Thursday for a discussion to sunset the redevelopment area so property taxes raised there could instead go toward the city's general fund, which pays for police, fire rescue and parks. The special taxing districts are supposed to direct attention to areas deemed to be blighted, and Floyd argued that that is no longer the case for downtown.
Other council members instead said they wanted to hold off discussing getting rid of the financial tool, as the Rays' stadium deal was not expired at that time. They said the city still has other projects that get money through the taxing district that could be used for Welch's new vision for the Gas Plant.
