Tampa Bay Rays Scrap $1.3B Ballpark Plan Amid Hurricane Milton Fallout
The Tampa Bay Rays backed out of plans to build a new stadium in St. Petersburg on Thursday.
Rays owner Stuart Sternberg said the decision not to move ahead was due in part to damage at the team’s existing stadium from Hurricane Milton in October. The team is planning to make a local ballpark used for spring training its home base for the 2025 season before eventually returning to a repaired Tropicana Field.
“After careful deliberation, we have concluded we cannot move forward with the new ballpark and development project at this moment,” Sternberg said in a statement on social media. “A series of events beginning in October that no one could have anticipated led to this difficult decision.”
The Rays and local officials have had a somewhat contentious relationship. The Major League Baseball team first iced its new stadium plans in November after it said officials in Pinellas County failed to approve $1.3B in bonds.
The county eventually approved those bonds, but the Rays said the delay led to cost overruns, and a debate around the timeline for government-funded repairs to the existing stadium have created more contention.
Hurricane Milton, which made landfall just south of Tampa and St. Petersburg as a Category 3 storm, ripped apart the roof of Tropicana Field, and the Rays will play the 2025 baseball season at Steinbrenner Field, the New York Yankees' spring training field in Tampa.
It will cost roughly $56M to fix the fabric roof, and St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch said that most of the funding would come from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The city is obligated, as part of its contract with the Rays, to repair the stadium.
After waffling, the Rays ultimately supported a repair plan and, together with MLB officials, urged the city to finish the repairs in time for the 2026 season. City officials were unwilling to commit to the timeline.
In his statement Thursday, Sternberg said the Rays looked forward to returning to Tropicana Field next year, but questions are swirling around a potential team relocation. Sternberg is being pressured by MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and other team owners to sell the Rays, The Athletic reported.
It was a development Welch seemed to welcome in a statement on Thursday.
“As for the future of baseball in our city — if in the coming months a new owner, who demonstrates a commitment to honoring their agreements and our community priorities, emerges — we will consider a partnership to keep baseball in St. Pete,” Welch said. “But we will not put our city’s progress on hold as we await a collaborative and community-focused baseball partner.”
The planned 30,000-seat ballpark was meant to be the centerpiece of a massive redevelopment of the Historic Gas Plant District that was set to be spearheaded by Hines and would have added at least 600 new workforce or affordable housing units to St. Petersburg.
Construction was slated to begin this year, with the ballpark to be completed in 2028.
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said in a statement to the Tampa Bay Times that she was disappointed by the decision not to build the ballpark and said city officials were open to more discussions with the Rays, but she said that “any proposal will have to make sense for our taxpayers and community.”
The Rays’ contract to stay in the region expires in 2028 or 2029, depending on when Tropicana Field is fixed.
“Commissioner Manfred understands the disappointment of the St. Petersburg community from today’s announcement, but he will continue to work with elected officials, community leaders, and Rays officials to secure the club’s future in the Tampa Bay region,” MLB said in a statement.
