Where is the money coming from?
The new owners of Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays franchise have decided on where they want to build a stadium-village. The Hillsborough College District Board of Trustees voted to approve a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the Rays’ owners to pursue a partnership to redevelop the college’s 113-acre Tampa campus that would include a stadium and mixed-use development. Rays’ ownership now can talk to the college’s trustees to get the land but there is plenty of work ahead and the number one problem is how will the stadium-village development be funded. How much money will Rays’ ownership put into the project? How much money Hillsborough County will put into the project? How much money will the city of Tampa put into the project? How much indirect money will the state of Florida put into the project as the Governor Ron DeSantis has seemingly ruled out giving direct cash to the Rays’ owners. The Rays’ owners want to be in Tampa by 2029 and that is a very tight timeline. The Rays’ lease in St. Petersburg to use the city’s stadium ends in 2029.
The Rays’ previous ownership group failed in its three attempts to build a stadium-village in Tampa, in Ybor City and in St. Petersburg. The old Rays’ ownership backed out of the St. Petersburg stadium-village plan after getting a commitment from various municipalities to partially fund a stadium-village. The city of St. Petersburg planned to spend $287.5 million to help pay the bill of the $1.3 billion stadium. The city of St. Petersburg planned to kick in another $142 million for infrastructure including building roads and constructing sewer lines and the city would have sold about 65 acres of public land well below the appraised value for $105 million for the property. Money talks and Rays’ owners need some public cash to build a stadium-village.
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Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
