The Rays’ long-term home is in doubt after the team pulled out of plans for a $1.3 billion new stadium in St. Petersburg. The future is unclear, as St. Petersburg and Pinellas County officials have expressed frustration with Rays owner Stuart Sternberg.
John Romano and Colleen Wright of The Tampa Bay Times report that the Rays, within the past month, have floated the idea of renovating Tropicana Field beyond the roof repair. Under that plan, the team, city and county would contribute an equal sum — reportedly $200MM each — for large-scale renovations of their longtime home park. According to the report, the Rays would have agreed to a 10-year lease extension to remain at the Trop through 2038 in that scenario.
The city and county were not immediately keen on the idea. The Rays’ lease at Tropicana Field runs through 2028. It had initially been scheduled to expire in ’27, but it was extended by a year after hurricane damage left the stadium unplayable this season. The city, as lessor, is responsible for fixing the Trop after the hurricane ripped off its roof. The Rays are hopeful those repairs will be complete in time for the 2026 season. The city estimated the repair costs at $55.7MM.
Clearly, a $600MM renovation would go far beyond that. It makes little sense for anyone involved to make that commitment for three years, so it’d necessarily be paired with a lease extension. St. Petersburg mayor Ken Welch said yesterday that he “(has) no interest in working with this ownership group” after their decision to pull out of the stadium deal. Regarding the idea of a lease extension, he told The Tampa Bay Times that the city is “looking at a number of options but I don’t want to talk about, at this point, this notion of a 10- or 15-year extension at the Trop.”
Welch left the door open for reconsidering that idea in the future, saying he’d “talk with the council and with the community about the paths forward” once the Rays officially decline the current stadium deal. While the team has already made clear it’ll do so, the Rays need to sign an official termination letter on that project or wait for the bond approval to expire on March 31 (the date for the team to hit construction benchmarks to keep the public funding alive).
Rays team president Matt Silverman reiterated yesterday that the team is not for sale. He said they could reopen discussions with the City of Tampa and Hillsborough County after March 31. Silverman told Romano and Wright today that a lease extension at the Trop was also “one of many possibilities that has been discussed with the city and the county since the hurricanes.” The Rays have played at Tropicana Field since their founding in 1998. They will play this season at Tampa’s George M. Steinbrenner Field.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
