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The Rays' lease to play in Tropicana Field expires in 2027 and with seemingly endless ideas but no firm plan of action, that's where the baseball team will continue to play for now.
The Rays stadium saga continues.
The Tampa Bay Rays' plan to build a new ballpark in Ybor City is starting to fall apart, as the team's newly proposed blueprint might be too tall for the historic city, according to the Tampa Bay Business Journal (TBBJ).
What's more is that Tampa Mayor Jane Castor told the publication that the Rays have more or less left the city in the dark when it comes to the next steps.
"What we really need from the Rays in very short order is some type of an idea of what they're looking for in a stadium," Mayor Jane Castor told TBBJ on Monday. "Our position is we've gone as far as we can without having the specific renderings or details that they're looking for."
Before the Rays' split-season proposal was denied by the MLB, the team planned on building an open-air, smaller and less-expensive stadium in Ybor because it still planned on building a second stadium in Montreal. With those plans botched, the team is all in on a state-of-the-art retractable roof stadium fit for Florida's rainy season.
Still, Rays owner Stu Sternberg has said that the furthest he could go on a new stadium is "halfsies," but only if he got a Mets-esque $25-million-a-year naming rights deal.
A retractable roof not only adds millions to the final price tag, but the MLB requires all enclosed stadiums to stand approximately 25 stories tall, according to Castor.
Not only would this type of size make it difficult for the stadium to be constructed on the team's proposed site, but it would easily make it the tallest building in Ybor and could literally overshadow much of the city's rich history. The stadium's construction would also first have to be approved by the city's Barrio Latino Commission.
Despite the backing of local "rich guys" and an internal Castor poll taking the temperature on giving $350 million to the team for the stadium, the plan to build a stadium in Ybor is looking like a bust. It's not a definite no, but without clear communication for Rays' spokespeople and Sternberg, Castor told TBBJ there's not much more the City of Tampa can do on its end.
The Rays' lease to play in St. Pete's Tropicana Field expires in 2027 and with seemingly endless ideas but no firm plan of action, that's where the baseball team will continue to play for now.
