Rays planning new ballpark?

[koopalicious]

Originally Posted by jonknee

They have a ton of leverage. They can just leave.

And go play in a Little League park? Where is there a market close to the size of this one willing to build them a new stadium?

[Jasonhouse]

^willingness and political viability are two different things. I'm sure there are several cities where the politicians would LOVE to sidle up to a billionaire looking to trade "campaign donations" for a cushy 30 years lease that assures profits on the backs of the taxpayers. The problem is, the politician who pimps that corporate welfare shit these days is more likely to wind up physically getting his ass kicked by voters, than he is to be reelected.

[TampaMike]

Originally Posted by John F

Mike, think about it this way: The discussion did not start now, it started at the beginning of the economic collapse. November 2007. That's four years ago. It's been out there for a while, but I do believe the timing is still bad.

Bud Selig was calling for the Trop's replacement during the housing bubble boomtimes -- 2004. Yet he was speaking up about this while Vince was silent. Vince, who had signed the 30 year lease and had the franchise playing the sixth season under it.

Haha well, I know this was directed to TampaGuy instead of me, but I'll like to talk about this.

2007 was the year that the Devil Rays were planning for a new change in 2008. New uniforms, new name, new players. And I think at that time, they were looking to Tampa instead of staying in St. Pete. And the spectacular performance by new faces like Evan Longoria and a 2008 World Series appearance only made the discussion of relocating the team elsewhere even more serious. I think Stu knows he has a good team and wants that team to play where they can get more fans, if relocating to Tampa will improve the attendance at the games.

I brought it up in the Prime Meridian thread, but I'll bring it up here too. With Trammell Crow Co. moving their project near the CAMLS, there is even more space for a MLB stadium on the ConAgra site. I can only see this area becoming more likable for a Rays stadium with the recent news.

[John F]

Originally Posted by TampaMike

Haha well, I know this was directed to TampaGuy instead of me, but I'll like to talk about this.

2007 was the year that the Devil Rays were planning for a new change in 2008. New uniforms, new name, new players. And I think at that time, they were looking to Tampa instead of staying in St. Pete.

That's re-writing history with personal assumption. November 2007 was when the retractable roof/sail ballpark on the St. Pete waterfront was unveiled. A ballpark that had been discussed in private with certain city officials for some time beforehand.

Yeah, the change to the team name was also unveiled then. Yeah, the future looked promising. But Tampa was not part of the equation then. Nor was BilL Foster. They (the Rays) had a comprehensive plan, that even contradicted a study saying downtown St. Pete was a bad location, and they committed to it until voters pretty much screamed "No", and also while the press took issue with the back-room dealings between the city and the team to begin with.

[HARTride 2012]

The more I read about Foster and his tactics to keep the Rays in the Trop "indefinitely" til their contract expires, the more I think about how much of a MORON Foster really is...

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politic...a-shot/1189268

The Plan for our Tampa Bay Rays? The mayor takes a shot

By Sue Carlton, Times columnist
Posted: Sep 01, 2011 06:39 PM


Turns out St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster really is a man with a plan for keeping the Rays in Tampa Bay.

Except it's not a plan, exactly.

More like a strategy type thing.

Kind of plan-ish. You could even call it the mayor's own plan-ette.

For nearly two weeks, a city scratched its collective head over Foster's assertion that he indeed has a plan to have us cowbelling around here for years to come. (Uh, did someone just say Secret Stadium Deal?)

But the subsequent lack of public details had some wondering if an Easter Bunny sighting was more likely than learning what he had in mind.

So the mayor stepped forward with a two-page explanation of his Plan, which ran in the Times this week. And if you will allow me to boil this down for you, it goes something like:

1. Hold the Rays' feet to the fire, since they are under contract to play here 16 more years and St. Pete and Pinellas have invested in them big-time.

2. Support ongoing private efforts to keep them here.

3. Support your local team. Go Rays!

Yep, in short, pretty much the same stuff you already knew and not some secret-squirrel stadium plan to blow us all away and make them stay.

This is-there-or-isn't-there-a-Plan question came up after city council members got antsy about the stalemate between the Rays, who say playing until 2027 at the Trop is not financially doable, and the city, which won't let the team explore potential sites in Hillsborough.

That's when Foster assured them of his detailed Plan — You know, guys, the one I told you about? — except most of them had no clue what he meant.

But a Plan, you say? If there was a Plan to keep the team, we the people wanted details! Were they already painting in parking spots at an undisclosed stadium site somewhere in Pinellas? Debating Nathan's verses Ball Park as official dog of the new digs?

Who's paying for it? Where will it be? Is it convenient for me? Give us the Plan!

Or, as it turns out, the general strategy.

Foster's missive talks about the city "preparing for any and all scenarios when dealing with the Rays and Major League Baseball" given "the investment of hundreds of millions of dollars by the people of St. Petersburg and Pinellas." It talks of ginning up regional support. It says the city itself does not have a plan for construction of a new stadium.

He did catch my eye with the part about keeping the team competitive "in the Tampa Bay region." As in, even beyond Pinellas? Tampa, even?

"No," the mayor clarified Wednesday. He was talking about the Rays as a regional asset.

He also said the word "plan" may have stirred this tempest (with the help of this newspaper, he said.)

"The erroneous speculation brought about by my own words," he said.

"I take full responsibility that it was me opening my mouth that caused it," he said. "I think people thought there's a secret cigar-filled back-room plan in the works."

And so we are where we are, hoping the Rays stay in Tampa Bay. And the mayor in the middle?

"I'm still getting my mayor legs," Foster said.

Now that's a plan.

[Jasonhouse]

Lol. Idiot mayor for idiot voters. The Rays are as good as gone (from the bay Area) so longer as Foster has anything to do with it.

[TampaMike]

I think he should just work out a deal that allow the Rays to leave the city but at a cost. Get some good cash, start finding a developer again for the Tropicana site, maybe put some of the money in reserves for a streetcar, and use the rest for balancing the budget or even the Pier.

Instead, he looks more happy shooting his own city in the foot, but making sure to shoot Tampa in the foot while he's at it.

[HARTride 2012]

Agreed. At this rate, Foster will force the Rays to leave Florida entirely.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Jasonhouse

Lol. Idiot mayor for idiot voters. The Rays are as good as gone (from the bay Area) so longer as Foster has anything to do with it.

"I present you our three-part plan to keep the Rays: Principles! Oh, and by the way, the city has no plan."

[koopalicious]

Originally Posted by TampaMike

I think he should just work out a deal that allow the Rays to leave the city but at a cost. Get some good cash, start finding a developer again for the Tropicana site, maybe put some of the money in reserves for a streetcar, and use the rest for balancing the budget or even the Pier.

You're forgetting the part about the Rays finding financing for a new stadium... which is kind of a prerequisite to any of the above happening.

[Jasonhouse]

MLB is worth billions. They could EASILY fund their own facilities, if only voters would stand up for themselves and tell these corporate welfare queens to fuck off.

[John F]

Foster's been getting ridiculed pretty good everywhere I turn. "Minor league mayor"

Well, duh. We could see that when he was elected. hell, we could see that before he was elected.

[jonknee]

Tampa says it can potentially contribute $100 million for a Rays stadium


http://www.tampabay.com/news/localgo...illion/1197473

TAMPA — A Chamber of Commerce task force studying baseball stadium financing recently asked Tampa City Hall what it could contribute, in theory, to a new ballpark.

The answer: $90 million to $100 million — or about a fifth of the estimated $500 million cost of similar projects elsewhere.

That's how much the city has told the chamber-created Baseball Stadium Financing Caucus it might be able to raise, presumably in the form of a 20-year bond issue.

The city's debt on the Tampa Convention Center is scheduled to be paid off in 2015. Then the city expects to have about $12.5 million a year available for downtown improvements, and that money could be used to repay stadium-related bonds. But here's a big caveat: Tampa hasn't said it would put the money toward a stadium, only that it could.

"We were very, very clear that it was no promises, no commitment," Tampa chief financial officer Sonya Little said.

The caucus has talked to St. Petersburg and Hillsborough County officials, too, and expects to have similar conversations with Pinellas County officials.

Led by Chuck Sykes, the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce last year started the private effort to investigate ways to keep the Tampa Bay Rays in the region. The St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce joined the effort in May.

"What we're looking at is how to pay for a stadium," said Jeff Hearn, a Raymond James senior vice president who chairs the finance structure committee of the caucus. "We're investigating the various opportunities both in the private and in the public sector."

What the caucus is not doing, Hearn said, is looking at possible locations for a new stadium.

Sykes met last week with Hillsborough County Administrator Mike Merrill, who did not offer the kind of estimate that Tampa officials provided.

"We do not foresee (doing) that right now based on existing revenues," Merrill said.

Merrill said he talked with Sykes about how the county helped finance the St. Pete Times Forum, Raymond James Stadium and Steinbrenner Field.

Those projects primarily relied on the Community Investment Tax, which sunsets in 2026 and would need to be reauthorized by voters to be extended, and the tourist tax, which Merrill said has little unused capacity.

In St. Petersburg, Hearn met about a month ago with Joe Zeoli, the managing director of St. Petersburg's city development administration. Their discussion started with the existing financing for Tropicana Field, where the Rays now play.

Debt payments for Tropicana Field currently total nearly $13 million a year. Money to make those payments comes primarily from the city of St. Petersburg, county tourist taxes and state sales taxes.

Starting in 2017, debt service on the stadium drops to about $2 million a year. Those payments continue until 2026, and state sales taxes are expected to cover virtually all of those payments.

Zeoli and Hearn also touched on a few financing ideas, such as rental car taxes and parking surcharges, that had been brought up for the now-defunct proposal for a $450 million waterfront stadium for the Rays. They did not discuss the potential of those ideas for any new stadium.

Nor did they address the question of what the city's bonding capacity could be for a future project. Still, Zeoli said he expects the caucus to circle back to the city in the future, and the question could come up then.

In Tampa, Mayor Bob Buckhorn says he will not interfere with St. Petersburg's efforts to resolve whether the Rays will leave Tropicana Field before their contract there expires in 2027.

But Buckhorn says it's prudent to be ready to move quickly if the Rays do leave St. Petersburg.

The money now going to the convention center's debt is tied to the city's downtown community redevelopment area, which means it can be spent only on downtown improvements. The potential stadium location that Buckhorn favors, just north of the St. Pete Times Forum, is in that redevelopment area.

While there is no expiration date for the redevelopment area itself, the financing plan for the $12.5 million a year now going to convention center debt sunsets in 2018, Little said. Extending the plan beyond that would require the approval of the Hillsborough County Commission.

Buckhorn says he would expect "significant owner investment," likely more than $200 million, for any such project.

Otherwise, he said the model for recent stadiums elsewhere has had local governments pay for public improvements like roads, water and sewer lines, streetscaping and possibly assembling the land. It does not include the public helping to pay for the stadium itself.

Still, Buckhorn said last month, "everything that I do chips away at the cost. If I can do the infrastructure, that alleviates a significant chunk of that half a billion dollars."

[ATampaArnold]

I am glad that buckhorn is bringing up the issue. The rays are in a bad building and in a bad geographic location. I like baseball but I hate going to tropicanna field. Plus if it ends up in tampa it would be good for the downtown area.

[Jasonhouse]

Well, there goes the money that could have been used to overhaul downtown's mass transit and zoning codes.

[jonknee]

Originally Posted by Jasonhouse

Well, there goes the money that could have been used to overhaul downtown's mass transit and zoning codes.

Otherwise, he said the model for recent stadiums elsewhere has had local governments pay for public improvements like roads, water and sewer lines, streetscaping and possibly assembling the land. It does not include the public helping to pay for the stadium itself

Maybe that's how it happens...

[smiley]

Tampapshere has something on this http://tampasphere.wordpress.com/201...up-10-21-2011/

[CubanBread]

Give it Time, Orlando is going to start making moves to get the Rays

[TampaMike]

From yesterday

Selig not optimistic about Rays' 'bad' attendance
http://www2.tbo.com/sports/breaking-...nce-ar-273579/

I really don't understand the critical views on the Rays when Oakland has dropped from 23,000 in 2006 to 18,000 this season for average attendance. While the Rays have actually gone up from 17,000 in 2006 to 19,000 this season for average. And last season, the average was almost 23,000 and ranked 9th for attendance, beating out Toronto and Baltimore. I still think we should wait until seeing at least one season with the Marlins in their new stadium to have any true discussions for a new one here.

[John F]

The whole debate is political right now, but there's a story in the Times today that perked my interest: A tradeoff. The Rays go to Tampa and teh cruise-ship industry goes to St. Petersburg.

Cruise ships - the new models - are too big to pass under the Skyway... So the idea is to build a terminal on the west side of the Skyway so the Bay area doesn't lose out on the industry entirely when ships become too large.