The Tampa Bay Rays’ proposed Forever Home ballpark in Tampa is inching toward the finish line, with city and county leaders now working through the revised paperwork that could put the $2.3 billion project up for a vote.
Nothing is official yet. The public meetings still have not been formally scheduled, and the deal is not final. But the push inside Tampa and Hillsborough County has clearly accelerated, with a possible Tampa City Council vote as soon as Thursday and a decisive council vote on Aug. 27 before the Hillsborough County Commission would take its turn.
Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan said Tuesday on WDAE’s Pat and Aaron Show that the goal was to line up the needed city and county meetings for next week. He said Rays CEO Ken Babby had told him the team and the city had reached a stage where a vote could soon be set. Hagan also said he was 85 percent confident the stadium project will move ahead.
That number is encouraging for supporters who want the Rays to stay in Tampa Bay, but it is still just a prediction. The real test comes when the documents are finished, the public can review them and the votes actually happen.
The sequence appears set: Tampa City Council goes first, then the county. Hagan has said the county will wait until the city approves its side of the definitive agreement before taking its final vote. That stance comes after the May process, when the County Commission approved a nonbinding memorandum of understanding and the City Council’s later action surfaced disagreements over the financing structure.
Bill Carlson has become a key voice in the updated talks. Speaking Tuesday to JP Peterson, the Tampa City Council member said the working framework is expected to include major parts of his proposal, among them a new tax increment financing district around the Hillsborough College redevelopment site and changes tied to the existing Drew Park Community Redevelopment Area.
Those revisions are aimed at solving the issues that kept earlier talks from becoming a binding deal. Carlson’s approach has centered on reshaping Tampa’s role and drawing clearer financial lines around the project.
Under the earlier nonbinding outline, the public side was expected to contribute about $976 million, while the Rays would cover more than $1.2 billion. Hillsborough County’s share was projected at about $796 million, made up of Community Investment Tax revenue, Tourist Development Tax revenue, disaster-recovery reimbursements and other county sources. Tampa’s portion was estimated at $180 million, including city Community Investment Tax money and future revenue from the Drew Park CRA.
Those numbers, though, are still not locked in. The final figures, obligations and legal terms will be set out in the definitive documents, and that is exactly why the timing matters so much. A public body cannot properly approve a project this large until the full terms are in front of it.
For now, the strongest signal is the movement toward that Aug. 27 council vote, followed by possible county action. It suggests Tampa, Hillsborough County and the Rays believe a workable path is finally in reach.
Still, the deal is not done. The City Council has to get the revised agreement, vote on it in public and approve it. Only then would the County Commission move on its own commitments.
So the Rays’ Tampa Forever Home plan is not complete yet. But it is closer than it has been at any point in these negotiations.
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