rays waterfront ballfield
The Rays want St. Petersburg to build a $450 million ballfield on the waterfront in downtown St. Pete. They have come up with a financing plan for Waterfront Stadium that they say doesn’t include any new taxes. Here’s where the money comes from:
- $150-million up front from the team.
- $100-million from extending a 1 percent tax on Pinellas County hotel stays for an additional 25 to 30 years. That tax is now paying for Tropicana Field.
- $75-million from extending the city’s contribution to Tropicana Field for another 25 to 30 years.
- $70-million from the developer buying Tropicana Field.
- And $55-million in guaranteed parking revenue associated with the 34,000-seat ballpark.
There are supporters. Fans for a Waterfront Stadium is a “citizen’s coalition made up of lifelong St Petersburg residents, downtown visionaries, teachers, baseball fans, business owners, parents and neighbors” who are pushing for Major League Downtown. But St. Petersblog says the list of business supporters is suspect.
Meanwhile, Preserve Our Wallets and Waterfront (POWW) is a “group of concerned St Petersburg residents from all walks of life (and from all parts of town) who have decided to work together to provide the community with information regarding the proposed development of the Tropicana site and new baseball stadium at the current Al Lang Field.” They want to “preserve our world-famous downtown waterfront for generations to come…”
POWW says sports stadiums don’t help local merchants, and instead those stores would see a “sharp decline in business.”
Meanwhile, Rays Managing General Partner Stuart Sternberg made it clear that the stadium would either be open by 2012 or it will not happen. If the referendum does not pass this fall, there will not be another attempt to get it passed.
Perhaps St. Pete doesn’t even need a baseball team. The team is winning, and they couldn’t get 21,000 to show up for the Yankees. Times Sports Columnist John Romano says that maybe “St. Petersburg has neither the wealth nor the civic roots to support major-league baseball.”
Loading ...
May 16th, 2008 at 11:59 am
I like the design idea fro the stadium, hate the location, abhor the timing (I mean, the rumors and official announcement came in November 2007 — while the economy had just started to seriously tank).
yet the finances use fuzzy math IMHO. That much money from parking when lack of parking is a problem with the proposal. X million from the Tropicana land being sold to a developer while real estate values are in the gutter?
The other point I want to bring up, and this came up on a conversation on Skyscraperpage.com about the new balpark — is that while stories ma say there is no financial impact from sports venues - you just have to look at Downtown Tampa on game night for the Lightning or when concerts are in town. Then compare it directly to nights when the Forum hosts no events.
The proposed stadium wouldn’t be multi-purpose though, compared to the Trop or the St. Pete Times Forum.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Re: “financial impact from sports venues” — Those are not new dollars..just dollars pulled from somewhere else.
I love baseball, but I believe baseball owners should pay for their stadiums 100%.
For a great site on the economy of sports: http://www.fieldofschemes.com/
Their most recent post is about the Rays.
And the proper location for that team is the intersection of I-4 & I-75.
May 17th, 2008 at 12:34 am
Best argument against the stadium I feel is the one that says every city have land next to an interstate, not every city has waterfront property.
Why waste the waterfront with a stadium while trying to make the land next to the interstate profitable?