The Tampa Bay Rays are still pushing ahead with their vision for a new stadium district in Tampa, even as City Council threw up fresh roadblocks on Thursday.
The team released new renderings for a proposed $1 billion development on Hillsborough College’s Dale Mabry campus, a 100-acre project built around a stadium and broken into smaller districts. The plans call for ground-floor retail shops, dining, hotel space, residential space, office space and public green space.
Rays ownership says the broader project would create nearly 12,000 permanent jobs in the area. Under the non-binding agreement, the team is seeking about $180 million from the city of Tampa in sales tax and CRA funds, along with about $796 million from Hillsborough County.
But the political side of the deal took a hit Thursday.
In a 5-2 vote, Tampa’s Community Redevelopment Agency board removed discussion of the stadium agreement from its August meeting agenda. Council members said they want Rays leadership to negotiate with each of them.
Later that night, the city council voted 4-3 against sending a future land-use amendment for the Hillsborough College Dale Mabry campus property to Tallahassee for review. Councilwoman Lynn Hurtak made her position plain: "I'm not even transmitting this because I don't think it's the right thing to do, so I think it's a waste of time to send it to the state if I'm just going to vote against it," she said.
Not everyone saw the vote as a major substantive defeat. Councilman Alan Clendenin noted that a transmittal is not the final say on the property’s future and said those steps usually move through without much resistance.
"These things usually just go through without even blinking an eye, because it's just a transmittal hearing to ask Tallahassee to comment on the plan, so that's what we're doing tonight," Clendenin said. "This is not the meat, it's just a technical procedure."
Clendenin also said this may be the first time the council has failed to transmit an item.
Rays CEO Ken Babby had previously sounded upbeat about the talks, saying earlier this month that he had been in ongoing conversations with city and county leaders.
On Friday morning, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor blasted the council’s move as "beyond frustrating." On social media, Castor said it halts work to bring the Rays to Tampa dead in its tracks.
For now, the next steps are murky. It’s still unclear whether the team and local leaders will revise the financing plan or adjust the land-use requests as they move forward.
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