DRaysBay's Stadium Proposal - Part 1

the city will setting for a small yearly sum for the life of the team.

But I’m going to try to stay out of the funding question as much as possible. As much as I agree that it’s a legitimate concern, I just don’t see Mayor Foster or the City of St. Petersburg being stubborn enough to refuse a contract buyout. Especially when, assuming there is a proposal in Tampa, they’ve completely lost their leverage to keep the team in St. Pete.

If private development arises in the Tampa area, St. Pete will have no leverage and no way to keep the team from breaking it’s lease.

Given the fact the Rays were willing to build one for the Sailpark, I’m going to assume one (or two) would be on the table for this kind of location. I chalked it up into assumed infrastructure improvements that come with these types of projects.

275 would be a concern, but it is just one of three ways over the bay to get to a park. The Crosstown is as empty as the 275 is full when I cross it going to games.

In 5-10 years you can park at westshore and take the light rail

Didn’t have a good way to mock up a convertible stadium for this but I’m certain Josh has something in store

A shade providing roof would do wonders. ( See sail design)

A shade providing roof is plenty(see sail design)

A shade providing roof would do wonders. ( See sail design)

A shade providing roof is plenty(see sail design)

If you want a regional sports network, Orlando has to be there. The Magic aren’t going to be enough of a pull to get that done, regionalize the Magic and the Rays and Lightning and you’ve got a winner.

Would be the Crosstown Extension to the Gandy Bridge, and that’s probably more than a decade away even if they can fight off the NIMBYs.

To get community support you have to give everyone a reason to support it, and part of the package will have to include improvements to downtown exits on 275, and improve traffic flow of kennedy.

it’s a solid alternative to road traffic, it can connect key locales (beaches, downtowns, sporting locations, major parks) across the metro area, and can add to Tampa Bay’s draw as a Super Bowl/Final Four/All-Stars/convention city.

But I think you’re making the same mistakes in your vision that the Rays did with their Al Lang proposal. That is, your approach is along the lines of saying ‘this is a great idea, why don’t you people just understand what’s best for you?’

Now, you’re going to get a positive reception here because this site is full of Rays fans and frankly, it’s full of well-informed liberal-leaning people. But if you’re laying out an ideal without touching on funding or how this would obtain political support, it’s going to go nowhere in a public setting. After the light rail debacle, I suspect public officials in Hillsborough will be very leery of supporting any large expenditure of dollars that would amount to a tax increase, and I don’t know how you can build a $500 million-plus facility without that crucial political support.

In any case, there is no appetite for spending public dollars on a new stadium right now – anywhere, and there will not be until the economy rebounds. When it does, it’s still going to be an uphill slog to get something like this approved.

The only other thing I would add is that I still think Pinellas is the most feasible option, probably at Toytown or Gateway. That would placate St. Petersburg and the existing funding mechanisms for the Trop can just be extended to the new stadium, possibly with the property tax revenues from the Trop development also going to support a new facility. Again, that’s not going to work until the economy rebounds and property tax revenue actually becomes a stable funding source.

I don’t, however, think you can just add a throwaway line about offering St. Pete a big enough buyout and therefore assume that the problem is dealt with. That money will be a substantial expense and could crimp any Rays contribution to the new park, and losing the Rays would be a big blow for Pinellas County and St. Pete – no matter how you spin it.

And the two are hardly related.

Their presence here during FSL season is negligible. Clearwater is a bigger pull away from Rays games than Steinbrenner Field. That’s something other markets do not have to deal with that rarely gets brought up. Pirates, Tigers, Yankees, Jays, and Phillies all play FSL games within an hour of Tropicana Field each night. That’s going to deter some people from doing the major league thing when the minors are such a cheap bargain due to the much lower overhead.

and I don’t have the access to the map, However, the 2000 census data shows that Toytown has 1,117,745 people within 30 minutes and 515,228 households within 30 minute drives. That’s much better than where Tropicana Field sits and better numbers than what our proposed location exists but doesn’t do anything to solve the perceived problem of the 27 mile long bridges. It only moves the stadium about 5 miles closer and it’s difficult to imagine much more development in an area that is pretty much framed out already.

That would be isolated development of a yard and would go against the grain of any of the new parks developed in the last 20 years. Miller Park is the best example I can think of where a new park was not wrapped into a local development boom but it was built on the same site that people had been coming to games since 1950 and there is already an established community/feel around the park in that area where West Allis and Milwaukee collide.

Josh is the visionary here – I’m just helping drive the car for a bit with this first piece. No way I could have put all of this together without his work and yours as well on the 5/10 maps. After all, I’m just a carpetbagger in Orlando :)

Ideally, my travel would not have been so screwed up on Wednesday and Thursday that I had the time to get the piece done then but between Hilton, mother nature, and Delta, I had about the worst travel week possible trying to get home from the northeast.

I expect Monday’s portion will generate even more discussion.

but it is no more beneficial than Toytown. If you take it from far west of the area to far east, it negates any gains and we don’t feel the transportation options that are in that area do not support it. Additionally, really not wise to build a park that close to a giant distraction like a casino that could distract people from getting to your park rather easily.

Pinellas has about a million people. A team can’t survive without people from Pinellas attending games regularly just like it can’t survive without people from Hillsborough attending games regularly.

However, my preferred funding model is one where ownership picks up a majority of the tab followed by tourists chipping in via bed tax and car tax, with localities being last on the list.

Very easy cross-promotional opportunities

I would pay like $5 for a rd trip from the pier to am DT Tampa stadium. I’m sure others would do the same.

They would need one of those high speed catamarans though