City Council approval has Rays 'on the cusp' of staying in St. Pete

ST. PETERSBURG -- After clearing a major hurdle on Thursday, the Rays are one vote away from officially securing their long-term home in the Tampa Bay area.

By a 5-3 vote at City Hall on Thursday afternoon, the St. Petersburg City Council approved the Rays’ agreement to build a new $1.3 billion ballpark as part of the long-term, $6.5 billion redevelopment of the 86-acre Tropicana Field site into the Historic Gas Plant District.

The deal with the Rays and their development partner Hines is still awaiting approval from the Pinellas County Commission, which is scheduled to vote on July 30.

• Rays' Historic Gas Plant District Development: Full coverage

By the end of the month, the Rays’ nearly two-decade pursuit of a new ballpark could be over. And it would keep them “here to stay,” as they have often said, right where they’ve been since their inaugural season in 1998.

“We’re on the cusp of something happening that I’ve been, and our organization here has been, pushing for and trying to get done for 20 years now,” Rays owner Stuart Sternberg said Wednesday during a pre-vote press conference at Tropicana Field. “We’ve made a number of missteps over the years. We dust ourselves off; we come back again. Things change in life, things change around in markets and they change around in baseball.

“But as we’ve always been clear: We wanted to be here, and we want to be here to stay.”

With the deal approved, the city of St. Petersburg is slated to spend $417.5 million on the approximately 8 million square-foot mixed-use district: $287.5 million for the stadium and $130 million on infrastructure.

Under the agreement, the county would commit $312.5 million in tourism revenue to the project. The Rays would pay for more than half of the stadium’s estimated cost as well as any additions or overrun.

Sternberg and team presidents Matt Silverman and Brian Auld were among the Rays’ representatives at Thursday’s City Council meeting. After an hour of public comment followed by questions and discussion from the council members, both for and against the deal, the eight-person council voted in favor of the 12 legally-binding documents representing what the city called one of the largest economic development projects in the Tampa Bay region’s history.

When the votes were revealed on two screens inside the council chambers, Sternberg received a handshake and a hug from St. Petersburg mayor Ken Welch while applause broke out from many of those in attendance.

“This is a day that has been more than 40 years in the making," Welch said. “It is a major win for our city.”

The Historic Gas Plant District will eventually include market-rate and affordable/workforce housing, office and medical space, retail space, hotel rooms, a childcare facility, a grocery store, senior living, entertainment space (including a concert venue), an African American history museum, community space, conference and meeting space, parking and, of course, a long-awaited new ballpark for the Rays.

If the agreement passes the county’s vote, the Rays plan to begin construction in January 2025 and have it ready for Opening Day in 2028.

The Rays, the city and the county announced this agreement last September, months after Welch selected the Rays/Hines group as his preferred choice to redevelop the Tropicana Field site.

“We couldn’t be more excited to transform this unique site into a city-defining, place-making destination that will be anchored by the Rays’ new ballpark and will be anchored by the Rays’ new headquarters in a new office building directly across the street from the new ballpark,” Hines senior managing director Michael Harrison said Wednesday.

The Rays’ current 30-year use agreement at Tropicana Field ends after the 2027 season. The new agreement is also for 30 years, beginning in 2028, with a pair of five-year renewals at the club’s discretion.

“Hines, in partnership with the Tampa Bay Rays, is grateful for St. Petersburg City Council’s support of this transformative, city-shaping project,” said Harrison, who has worked with the Rays since 2007, in a statement. “We look forward to the next step with Pinellas County. Our vision is to create a dynamic destination and community hub for all in St. Petersburg that embodies true placemaking and enhances the human experience.

“We remain committed to the descendants of the Historic Gas Plant District, aiming to develop an inclusive community that fosters opportunities for local businesses, well-paying jobs, and sustainable growth for all.”

The proposed stadium would be what Silverman called “the most intimate ballpark in baseball.” Featuring a fixed, pavilion-style roof, the ballpark would have roughly 30,000 seats with the capacity for Rays games reaching around 33,000-34,000 when accounting for standing room and public spaces.

The Rays have been searching for a new ballpark for the better part of two decades, coming up with what Sternberg jokingly referred to during Thursday's meeting as “some cockamamie schemes.”

There was the stadium on the Al Lang Stadium site announced in November 2007, the proposed ballpark in Ybor City that failed in 2018 and the split-season proposal with Montreal that was rejected by MLB’s Executive Council in January 2022.

Sternberg said on Thursday there were “absolutely” times he thought this agreement might fall through, too, including during recent negotiations with the city.

But now, after years of uncertainty, it appears the Rays really are here to stay in the Sunshine City.

“We knew we were going to have to play baseball somewhere in 2028. I’ve been solid, right from the beginning from when I purchased the team in 2005, that our goal was to stay in the Tampa Bay region,” Sternberg said after the vote. “I was never going to ask and demand that we leave the region, and I have never looked beyond this region, beyond Tampa and St. Petersburg -- and specifically St. Petersburg.”