In light of recent developments making a new thread on their latest stadium drama… which may be the last one…who knows
In the summer a deal was reached with the city of St… Petersburg for a new development and stadium scheduled to open in 2028.
Hurricane Milton tore the roof off the Trop last month which delayed the county vote to approve the bonds
Election earlier this month puts 2 people against the deal on council. It passed previously 5-2.
Rays now say the delays will cost them as they’re responsible for overruns. Plus now less revenue playing in Steinbrenner field…not in Pinellas County… which irks politicians there.
Last night the county voted again to delay the bonds along with a letter from the team effectively saying they’re suspending the deal until terms are worked out
Apparently bonds need be approved by March 31 or the deal terminates.
Interesting. And reading this on FoS this would go beyond the Tennessee Titans public subsidy:
“The St. Petersburg city council took its first vote on the proposed Tampa Bay Rays stadium project yesterday — St. Pete is one of those cities where the council has to vote on things twice, just to be sure — and as expected, it narrowly passed, with five out of eight councilmembers in favor. The official city expense is $212.5 million in property-tax kickbacks on the stadium site plus $130 million in infrastructure spending, but this leaves out a ton of hidden subsidies that Rays owner Stuart Sternberg would be getting:
About $300 million (present value) in future tax money from Pinellas County
$320 million worth of future property-tax reductions from the city and county
$700 million worth of land in exchange for payments worth just $80 million, making for a $620 million public gift
That comes to a public subsidy of roughly $1.6 billion, which would shatter the Tennessee Titans‘ record of $1.26 billion, at least until the next stadium project comes along.”
Well, the last vote controls the situation, and this is no best-of-three series and so forth. We’ll see what arises next in the area and also if there is any given court challenge to certain uses of public funds, which like in Nevada I would hardly be surprised.
Given how much Florida and that area have changed since I lived there, I’m also intrigued that this proposal even had a fat chance in passing in (coastal) Pinellas County, as opposed to in (city - Tampa) Hillsborough County across the bay with the two local camps with a long history at odds.
I suspect the bigger fight still lies ahead because this is a general election year.
The attendance problems have always been linked to the fact that the stadium is in St Petes not Tampa. The stadium should’ve been in Tampa close to the cruise port, arena, Ybor city area. People in Tampa are still not going to drive along that causeway all the way out to St Petes.
Big mistake
Well I guess eventually we’ll see how much of a factor Tropicana Field was for attendance. Maybe a large portion of people from Tampa didn’t want to drive or take public transportation due to the fact they were going to a stadium that wasn’t well regarded by many people and has a lot of bad press to go along with it. Don’t know. Apparently Tropicana Field isn’t in the prettiest neighbourhood and this which if people think they are going to a site that, in their minds, may still be contaminated, well hmmm, not exactly a marketing factor. (reminds me of then Hamilton Mayor Eisenberger wanting to put the stadium in Hamilton on a site that needed major soil cleanup due to toxic soil contaminants with “capping”. hmmm… maybe no thanks sitting on a capped piece of land knowing contamination under you.)
From wiki:
"The destruction of the Gas Plant district and the city’s shortcomings in securing economic and employment opportunities for the displaced African American community have left a jagged relationship between city officials and the aforementioned African American community. The destruction of the Gas Plant district financially crippled and killed many African American-owned small businesses and is often referred to as the main reason that only 10% of St. Petersburg’s small businesses are African American-owned today.
The dome was built on the former site of a coal gasification plant and, in 1987, hazardous chemicals were found in the soil around the construction site. The city spent millions of dollars to remove the chemicals from the area.[97]"
Also, behind a paywall though but the title tells it all. And we know when a city says "oh we spent millions cleaning it up, no worries, you darn well know people have worries. No thank you.
It’s another local sweetheart deal, with the first done at that location only for the owner of the New York Yankees, George Steinbrenner, who resided locally.
There’s been plenty of feedback over the years, as noted above here:
There’s no reason for attendance to have any pro sports team in that particular location in the Tampa Bay area, and after leaving the area in 2015, I can only imagine how much worse is the traffic now.
Even in living straight north in the same Pinellas county in Clearwater, it was always haul to go down to St. Pete!
Nothing wrong with the neighborhood, it’s a beautiful area and downtown/waterfront area has bars restaurants. But it’s too far from Tampa.
Public transportation? none from Tampa. People will not drive from Tampa, it’s baseball where they have to play weeknights not just weekends.
I don’t usually say this but you are wrong, wrong, wrong…the locals don’t want to take their kids to a toxic site. You are totally wrong and believe me, this stuff matters. You simply don’t want to take your kids to a stadium sitting on top of toxic soil whether remiatated according to local politicians or otherwise. You just don’t build a public stadium on such a site, Eisenberger in Hamilton was stupid he could not figure this out and Tampa as well and etc. You DON’T build publically financed stadiums on these toxic soil sites, the locals know the score. Hamilton lucked out, Tampa didn’t but in the end Tampa is going to work out like Hamilton. It’s up to the feds and provincial and state and municipal politicians to figure out what to do with these toxic soil sites from the early industrial years. And belive me, it’s not doing a half-arse job and building a stadium on these sites with some half-arse job remediation efforts,“capping BS” NO, NO, NO. you clean these sites up completely so real estate will invest in these site and give back to the community on the tax base. This to me, is how this works out on these old industrial toxic soil sites that nobody in their right minds should wan to take their family to a game. It is that simple. I applaud people in the Tampa and St. Pete’s area for not taking their family to the Trop, they are doing themselves and their families and their loved ones not going near that stadium to sit their on this garbage site. You don’t want a Mayor like in Hamilton that even thinks a public facility like a city owned stadium should be built on these sites without complete, and I mean complete soil remediation in it’s fullest. What was this Eisenberger dude in Hamilton even thinking about with his hafl-arsed “capping” BS? Scary, thankfully this man is no longer around in the Hamilton political scene with this total stupidity of where you invest in public monies. Tampa is figuring this one out though, good on them…:
Eisenberger didn’t give a crap shoots about this area of Hamilton as long as it got “sort of cleaned up”. What a POS politician this guy was in Hamilton, so thankful for the community in Hamilton a public stadium was never built there.
“The Ministry of Environment says it was not involved in the demolition. A spokesperson said whoever develops the property will likely have to do soil remediation. The developer will have to present proof that the soil meets the government standard for the zoning.”
Back to the Rays:
“Some of those involved had financial stake in the old gas plant, then an EPA superfund site loaded with toxic petrochemicals at the time and unsuitable for just about anything else. Now they want you to give them a subsidy to freshen up their business so they can increase their wealth.”
You are onto much here with the common denominator of two of those sites in FLORIDA, and Florida is a very “business-friendly” state for development with otherwise a host of severe environmental issues.
Essentially, any interests with a whole lot of money and great political connections in the state are able to cut sweeter deals with the local and state officials to develop these “brownfield” sites that nobody else would develop, with various promises of “remediation” and so forth done by licensed and local Florida contractors and subcontractors.
How these investors obtain approvals from also the federal government where it has its say, well I’m not sure, but hey that’s with the help of Major League Baseball after all.
And I didn’t realize that even Calgary has/had similar concerns about where to build the new arena for the Flames but exactly where the new arena is going in Calgary in relation to this, don’t know. Hey, I dont’t have a problem using brownfield or toxic sites for stadiums/arenas but do it right so the community totally understands the site is now good to go with your kids and family at a game sitting on top of the site after total 100 percent remediation.
But this past mayor in Hamilton, Eisenberger dude, wanted to do a half-arse job with “capping”, OMG this would not have worked out here in Hamilton with such a bandaid solution to this toxic site in Hamilton, they would have spent millions with the province for the PanAm Games on this site only to realize the thing was just “capped” and not totally “done with” sort of thing that needs to happen like the Randle reef situation here in Hamilton. This was an excellent toxic cleanup BTW, nothing to do with stadiums or arenas but when you cleanup an old toxic industrial site, you clean the fu,…er up and don’t just cap the thing unless it’s just some field to walk your dogs maybe here and there for a half hour, you don’t take your family to sit on top of this for 4 hours for a game not knowing exactly what fumes could be coming from underneath even if you can’t smell the fumes. NO, NO, NO:
Have you been there? it’s nothing to do with the fact that it’s built on a former industrial site, people have been going to the stadium for decades.
It’s the fact that it is 30 MILES or 50KM from the centre of Tampa and the only way is along a causeway across the bay.
It would be like the Tiger Cats moving to a stadium in Niagara falls
A difference of opinion but no, haven’t been there but isn’t there excellent public transportation? My goodness, people from all over S Ontario go to Blue Jays games that are far further than Tampa is from St. Pete’s. My family from London goes to Blue Jays games all the time and I’m sure that’s a longer trek than from Tampa to St. Pete’s. I’m sure the locals know what is underneath the stadium, a stadium rated just about the worst or close to it in MLB BTW.
I’ve lived there. What he says is correct. Apparently since I left in 2015, they have built up more in the area of the stadium too, for there was no good scene in that area before.
Indeed there are shuttle services like that, though I’m not sure how good that one is especially when you are leaving the game.
Anyway, public transportation is woeful in general, and that is the case in much of Florida though they do now have some high speed rail on the Atlantic Coast.