TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Tropicana Is Field Of Competing Dreams

News Channel 8 image by PETER MASA

The Rays are counting on money from the redevelopment of the 86-acre Tropicana Field site to help fund their proposed waterfront ballpark.

ADVERTISEMENT

By CARLOS MONCADA

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 19, 2008

Updated: 03/19/2008 12:13 am

ST. PETERSBURG - Three bidders, including Tampa-based DeBartolo Holdings, have submitted plans in the billion-dollar range for redeveloping Tropicana Field as part of a proposal by the Tampa Bay Rays to replace the field with a new waterfront stadium.

Mixed residential, commercial and retail projects are at the heart of each proposal. The bids were hand-delivered to the city by Tuesday's 10 a.m. deadline by these companies:

•Williams Quarter LLC, a team that includes NRP Group of Ohio, DeBartolo Holdings and RGA Group of Tampa and Nashville.

•Archstone-Madison of Arlington, Va., which is calling its development EcoVerde.

•Hines Interests LP of Atlanta, which has already teamed with the Rays as a consultant on the proposed redevelopment named West End.

The Rays are counting on money from redevelopment of the 86-acre Tropicana site to cover as much as $300 million of the $450 million cost of the open-air downtown stadium the team wants to build at the site of Progress Energy Park by 2012.

Click For Williams
Quarter, LLC Proposal

City staff members are evaluating the proposals and plan to brief city council members at a workshop March 27. The staff hopes to send a recommendation to Mayor Rick Baker in April on whether to move forward with any of them.

"I wouldn't begin at this stage to say one is better than the other," said Rick Mussett, St. Petersburg development administrator. "We have a lot of evaluating to do."

Baker said Tuesday afternoon that he had not read the proposals but was pleased with the number received.

"With so many uncertainties associated with whether this is going to go forward, I was wondering how many responses we would get," Baker said. "I was hoping we would get more than one."

Archstone-Madison is pitching a $1.2 billion mixed-use development that would create 11,564 jobs and raise $11 million in property and sales taxes and other revenue annually.

Click For Hines Interests
Limited Partnership Proposal

Hines' proposal calls for an $880 million development that would create 11,803 jobs and generate $167 million in city tax revenue and $239 million in countywide sales tax revenue over 35 years.

Williams Quarter said its $773 million development would create 1,400 jobs and raise $904,966 in annual tax revenue.

Plans To Pay Differ Greatly

A key difference among the bidders is what they would pay for the 86-acre Tropicana site. Archstone-Madison wants a 98-year lease and would pay the city a minimum annual rent of $1 million rising over time to $2 million.

Click For Archstone-Madison
Proposal

Hines Interests would pay $50 million on a phased basis as it commences development on each parcel.

Williams Quarter did not specify what it would pay for the site, saying the price would have to be negotiated.

The Rays have asked the council to decide by June 5 whether to authorize a voter referendum in November on a new downtown stadium.

City officials have emphasized the bid process does not commit St. Petersburg to proceed with razing the domed stadium on the southwest edge of downtown and replacing it with a massive mixed-use development, as the Rays have proposed.

A representative for the Rays said the team also was pleased with the number of bids and is prepared to work with whichever developer the city might select.

"Obviously, it confirms what we've been saying all along, that there will be significant interest on the site," said Michael Kalt, senior vice president of development and business affairs. "All three developers and development teams are national developers with great reputations and track records of having done projects like this before."

The Developers' Profiles

Some critics have said Hines, based in Houston, has received an unfair competitive advantage because it was retained by the Rays to produce a site development plan for the Tropicana Field site. This plan was unveiled when the team announced the stadium proposal in November.

Archstone-Madison is a partnership between Archstone Smith, which calls itself one of the nation's largest apartment companies, and Madison Marquette, which said it specializes in creating unique retail destinations. Among its projects is Asbury Park, a redevelopment along New Jersey's oceanfront that includes more than 400,000 square feet of retail, dining and entertainment.

Williams Quarter includes DeBartolo Holdings, the umbrella company for shopping center developer Edward J. DeBartolo Jr.'s family business interests.

A call to DeBartolo Holdings was not returned.

The NRP Group is a Cleveland-based housing developer and property manger. RGA Group is a design development company with offices in Tampa and Nashville.

Reporter Carlos Moncada can be reached at (727) 451-2333 or cmoncada@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT