A years-long pursuit of a new stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays, and a transformation of downtown St. Petersburg, is a step closer to coming to fruition.
The St. Petersburg City Council approved by a 5-3 vote on Thursday a plan to build a new baseball stadium to replace Tropicana Field, and redevelop the Gas Plant District - a once, predominately Black neighborhood demolished in the 1980s.
Under the proposal, St. Petersburg will contribute $312.5 million, Pinellas County another $287.5 million — primarily from bed taxes levied on hotel and motel stays. The Rays and developer Hines would pay for the remainder, at least $700 million.
City council members Gina Driscoll, Deborah Figgs-Sanders, Brandi Gabbard, Copley Gerdes and Ed Montanari voted in favor. Richie Floyd, Lisset Hanewicz and John Muhammad cast no votes.
The redevelopment, if approved by the Pinellas County Commission, will reimagine an 86-acre tract in downtown St. Petersburg.
"Today is a historic day in St. Petersburg. After 40 years and many promises, tonight's vote paves the way for the redevelopment of the Historic Gas Plant District," St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch said. "Although our partners at Pinellas County still must vote to fund their portion of the new stadium, tonight's decision by St. Petersburg CIty Council marks a huge step forward to making this deal become a reality. This is a day to celebrate the community, staff, Tampa Bay Rays, Hines Development, and partners that have played such an integral part in this process."
In addition to a new ballpark for the Rays, plans include affordable housing, a new facility to house the Carter G. Woodson African American Museum, green space, office and retail space, and a concert venue.
The revised plan also now calls for a supermarket; council approval of any reduction in the number of affordable apartments to be built; and having set dates for development milestones that would have to be met.
But the centerpiece will be a new, multi-purpose 30,000-seat baseball stadium that would be smaller but provide fans with a more up-close experience.
“Our baseball park will be the most intimate and inviting in the sport,” Rays President Matt Silverman said in a release to present new renderings of the stadium. “The park is designed to bring our fans as close to the field as possible, to create a distinctive, compelling game experience.”
The city will now hold public hearings on financing their part of the project. It would be asked to approve $291.5 million in bonds to finance the stadium and $140 million in bonds for infrastructure, such as roads, water and utility construction.
Rays principal owner Stu Sternberg said the vote is the culmination of a quest for a new permanent home for the team that has been going on for more than a decade. Those included a stadium with a sail roof at Al Lang Field and splitting the season with Montreal.
"We have tried some cockamamie schemes," he told the city council. "We've tried 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 and in what's now my home and has been for five years, St. Petersburg."
The financing plan calls for the city to spend about $417.5 million, including $287.5 million for the ballpark itself and $130 million in infrastructure for the larger redevelopment project that would include such things as sewage, traffic signals and roads. The city envisions no new or increased taxes.
Pinellas County, meanwhile, would spend about $312.5 million for its share of the ballpark costs. Officials say the county money will come from a bed tax largely funded by visitors that can be spent only on tourist-related and economic development expenses.
The proposal now goes before a Pinellas County Commission vote on July 30.
Council member Richie Floyd was one of three no votes. He has consistently said there are no guarantees on the numbers of affordable homes that would be built, or if the team is sold to another owner.
"We cannot rely on just promises. That's what happened last time and they were empty," he said referring to promises made to residents of the bulldozed Gas Plant District. " We need contractual obligations for things. There's no guarantee that the people making these promises will be here even five years from now.
"In fact, it's much more likely that the team has a different owner in the near future and that they may not be interested in keeping the promises that the last owner did," he said.
Floyd also objected to the city's share of money that will be used to build a new 30,000-seat stadium.
"To say that we can't do this without the stadium subsidy is to sell our city short," he told fellow council members. "And to ignore the fact that many developers offered to develop this property without a stadium, hundreds of millions of dollars for a stadium is not in the public's interest. And every community benefit in this agreement is a literal crumb compared to the money that we are spending on the stadium."
Dozens of people in the audience also objected to the plan, saying the city was giving away too much money for a stadium. One of those was Jeremy Tollberg of St. Petersburg.
"Your constituents are driving down ruined flooded streets, dealing with higher and higher bills and a darkening economy," he said. "Families are struggling every day, on the brink of financial devastation, and for you to betray the common good of hundreds of thousands of them just to subsidize the wealth of a Wall Street billionaire and his $2 billion company is a level of arrogance that would make Marie Antoinette blush."
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
This is a developing story. Stay with WUSF for coverage.
