by Steve Wilson
With the Tampa Bay Rays’ $1.3 billion stadium plan in limbo, it’s easy to forget that the team is now on the fourth iteration of a new home.
The proposed stadium is to anchor a $6.5 billion development in St. Petersburg’s historic Gas Plant District. The Pinellas County Commission could vote on its share of the bonds to finance the new stadium Dec. 17, while the St. Petersburg City Council will take up its share Jan. 9.
The team said in a letter the deal is in effect until a party terminates the deal and the Rays have fulfilled their obligations while blaming the commission for delays in approving the finances.
That contradicts a letter distributed by the team before the county commission meeting Nov. 19 that said the body’s failure to approve the bonds at its Oct. 29 meeting “ended the ability for a 2028 delivery of the ballpark” and that the Rays can’t absorb the additional costs due to the delay.
This isn’t the first time that the Rays have had plans for a new stadium to replace Tropicana Field, which was built in 1990 and now is in disrepair after Category 3 Hurricane Milton ripped off 18 of the stadium’s 24 roof panels.
The Rays will play its games this season in Tampa’s Steinbrenner Field, the spring training home of the Rays’ American League East rivals, the New York Yankees. The team will likely play there in 2026 after the city council punted on plans to spend $23 million to replace the Trop’s damaged roof. The team’s lease at the Trop expires in 2027.
In 2007, the team proposed a new stadium on Tampa Bay in St. Petersburg that would’ve been built where Al Lang Stadium is located. The open-air, yet retractable roof stadium would’ve seated 34,000 fans and would’ve had views of the bay and a roof that looked like a furling sail. Al Lang Stadium was the home of the Rays for spring training and is now a soccer stadium.
But after the $450 million stadium plan faced opposition, the Rays decided not to put the matter on the ballot for St. Petersburg voters and officially announced the deal’s cancellation on May 22, 2009.
Another stadium was proposed in Carillon, in northern St. Petersburg, in 2012, but fell through as the developer decided to build a mixed-use development without the stadium. That stadium was supposed to cost $577 million.
The Rays then announced another stadium proposal across the bay in Tampa’s Ybor City neighborhood in 2018 that was supposed to open in 2023. The glass-roof stadium was supposed to cost $892 million and would’ve been the smallest stadium in Major League Baseball.
On Dec. 11, 2018, team owner Stuart Sternberg announced that the project was “no longer viable.”
– – –
Steve Wilson has been an award-winning writer and editor for nearly 20 years at newspapers in Georgia, Florida and Mississippi and is a U.S. Coast Guard veteran and University of Alabama graduate. Wilson is a regional editor for The Center Square.
Photo “Tampa Bay Rays” by CityofStPete. CC BY-ND 2.0.
