Tampa Bay Rays To Open Season At Minor League Facility As Redevelopment Plans Strike Out
The city of St. Petersburg is postponing a vote to approve more than $22 million to fix the roof at Tropicana Field as the MLB's Tampa Bay Rays prepare for their home opener game 17 miles away in neighboring Tampa.
The delay marks another hurdle in getting the 1990s-era stadium back in shape after Hurricane Milton blew the roof off in October. The St. Petersburg city council vote, now scheduled for April 3, would have only funded a portion of the estimated repairs. A report from the city pegs the total cost to repair Tropicana Field to be $55.7 million.
The postponed vote adds another nail in the coffin for the proposed $1.3 billion redevelopment of the stadium and surrounding area that local officials and the MLB team announced in 2023. The plan included building a mixed-use district with thousands of multifamily units, 1.4 million square feet of commercial space and 750,000 square feet of retail in a partnership with developer Hines. The city, county and MLB team were expected to split the development costs.
But Rays' owner Stuart Sternberg backed out of the deal this month. He said in a statement that the team “cannot move forward with the new ballpark and development project at this moment." He cited a “series of events beginning in October that no one could have anticipated led to this difficult decision."
With Tropicana Field's roof blown out, the Rays are getting ready to open their season Friday afternoon across the Howard Frankland Bridge in Tampa at a minor league stadium. George R. Steinbrenner Field, the New York Yankees’ spring training facility, sits about 11,000 fans — much smaller than the nearly 43,000 seats at Tropicana Field. All of the Rays' 2025 home games are scheduled for the minor league facility.
Tropicana Field's hurricane damage is expected to be fixed by the 2026 season, but future redevelopment of the stadium and surrounding area is once again up in the air.
"It is still too early to tell" how the Rays backing out of the redevelopment deal will impact St. Petersburg, Pinellas County and Tampa Bay as a whole, said Michelle Rumore, CoStar’s director of market analytics for Tampa Bay.
Some stakeholders have put pressure on Sternberg to sell the team.
"A few groups came forward as potential buyers of the team" and it is speculated they would want a stadium in St. Petersburg, Rumore said.
The Tampa Bay Rays and St. Petersburg officials did not respond to requests for comment by CoStar News.
A representative for Hines told CoStar News in an emailed statement that the company “remains steadfast in its commitment to St. Petersburg … We firmly believe in the long-term value of keeping the Rays in St. Petersburg and are committed to collaborating with all stakeholders to advance this critical project.”
(CoStar News | By Joshua Andino)
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