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Rays Want To Move To Waterfront Field

By Peter Masa

In recent months, the team has intensified planning for an open-air ballpark projected to cost about $450 million to be built along the St. Petersburg waterfront on the site of the team's current spring training stadium, Al Lang Field.

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By MARC LANCASTER, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 10, 2007

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ST. PETERSBURG - If the Tampa Bay Rays have their way, outdoor baseball will come to downtown St. Petersburg by 2012.

Despite pouring millions of dollars into improvements at Tropicana Field the past two years, the Rays have pined for a more welcoming and traditional setting than the multipurpose dome that was part of the Bay area's admission ticket to Major League Baseball.

In recent months, the team has intensified planning for an open-air ballpark projected to cost about $450 million. It would be built along the St. Petersburg waterfront on the site of the team's current spring training stadium, Al Lang Field. The Rays acknowledged the project at a Friday night news conference after details of the plan appeared earlier in the day on tampabay.com.

"We are excited about these potential developments and all of the benefits that they would bring to our community," said team president Matt Silverman, reading from a statement. "Anything we do would certainly involve significant public input in all aspects of the process."

Rays officials declined to comment further. They are expected to make a full public announcement of their plans, including unveiling renderings of the stadium that already have been reviewed by city and state officials, within the next few weeks.

For the moment, it is nothing more than a concept. Financing plans remain murky and local voters and the state government must approve certain aspects of the plan for everything to fall into place. According to a person familiar with the situation, the Rays hope to provide the bulk of the money necessary for stadium construction.

The Rays will front $150 million, about a third of the cost. They also plan to seek state sales-tax rebates that would amount to $60 million. That measure would require approval from the Legislature. As the plan currently stands, the team doesn't anticipate asking the city to levy any new taxes or divert money from existing funds to the new project.

They hope to draw the biggest share of the necessary revenue from the sale and redevelopment of the current Tropicana Field site, but are unsure what the value of that land might be. Early talks have centered on luring retail outlets that would have a regional appeal compelling enough to draw visitors from surrounding counties.

The new stadium would be designed as a centerpiece to the waterfront. It would be open-air but feature a unique canopy that could be deployed either for shade or as protection from rain. There would be air conditioning in the suite areas and on the concourses.

A more traditional retractable roof is not being seriously considered because it would take up too much space. There also would not be any on-site parking at the stadium; fans would have to use downtown lots and garages.

Council Members Caught By Surprise

News of the new stadium caught several St. Petersburg council members by surprise, including chairman James Bennett.

"We need to be briefed," Bennett said after a special council session where council members received team jerseys with the new Rays logo. "This is a shock to me."

Mayor Rick Baker was unavailable at city hall and later could not be reached for comment.

City Development Administrator Rick Mussett, a member of Baker's Cabinet, said he "can't comment one way or another" when asked if the Rays made a request to the city for a new stadium.

Unlike in 1986, when city leaders cast their controversial vote to use tax money to build the $138 million domed stadium despite the absence of a baseball team, a new stadium on city-owned waterfront property would require a referendum and likely would not involve tax dollars, council member Bill Foster said.

"The days of publicly funded stadiums are behind us," Foster said. "There is a tax revolt. So it would have to involve no new tax money."

The state sales-tax rebate is slated to cover a relatively small portion of the cost but is no sure thing. In May, a plan to use the rebate to help pay for a proposed baseball stadium in Miami for the Florida Marlins died in the Senate after receiving House approval. It was the sixth time a financing plan for a new Marlins stadium failed to make it out of the Legislature.

If the Rays proceed with stadium plans, though, they may have an ally in Gov. Charlie Crist, who lives in St. Petersburg. The governor is an advocate of using the rebate for stadium construction.

Crist is traveling in Chile and could not be reached Friday, but Rays officials gave him an overview of their plans in August.

Redevelopment 'An Interesting Idea'

Regardless of how the state funding plays out, the onus is on the Rays to maximize the value of the Tropicana Field site, which some local real estate experts doubt would prove an attractive spot for redevelopment.

"Right now, of course, housing is out of the question," said Hal Piper, leasing director for EastGroup Properties in Tampa. And that part of St. Petersburg "has failed over and over again as a potential industrial site," despite city efforts to lure industrial employers and developers, he said.

Geography rules out using Tropicana Field for a warehouse and distribution center, Piper said. Distribution companies need a centralized location from which they can serve all the customers in a region, and Tropicana Field sits on a peninsula.

Tim Hain, vice president of Duke Realty Corp. in Tampa, said he doesn't think Tropicana Field would make an attractive site for high-end office space.

However, he acknowledged that redeveloping the property is "an interesting idea," as there's not much land available for new development in Pinellas County.

Photo by Peter Masa

The fact that the Al Lang site will be available once the Rays move their spring training operations to Port Charlotte in 2009 is the impetus behind putting together a plan now. The city is under no obligation to leave that parcel of land open for potential future use to the Rays, and the team would like to seize what may be the most palatable option for a new stadium while it can.

Bennett predicted that a new stadium along the waterfront would be a tough sell to voters, who would be required under the city charter to approve the project. Using the property, part of downtown's waterfront park system, for anything other than parkland requires a public vote.

"This may be an opportunity that our city has to look at," Bennett said. "But in the end the citizens always get to vote on waterfront property, and if it's a good idea they'll support it."

"Personally I love this stadium," Bennett said of Tropicana Field. "But you know what? You knew that these guys were coming to town and sooner or later they were going to ask for a new stadium. I didn't expect it to be this early."

Reporters Carlos Moncada and Dave Simanoff and columnist Joe Henderson contributed to this report.

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