Tampa Bay Rays Discuss Future Home

The Tampa Bay Rays will begin talking to the Hillsborough County Commission about the Major League Baseball team’s future on Florida’s west coast.

Those discussions could include relocating the team to Tampa from St. Petersburg, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

County commissioners voted last week to initiate talks with the Rays, who have said for several years that they do not want to continue playing at the enclosed Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg until the end of the team’s contract in 2027, the paper said. The Rays insist that the current ballpark is unsuitably large and fails to draw enough fans.

St. Petersburg sold debt, some of which is outstanding, to turn its multi-use facility into an MLB ballpark. City officials have talked with the team about a new facility, though infrequently. Mayor Bill Foster told the Times that Hillsborough’s offer amounted to “interference” in the city’s business with the Rays.

This week, Pinellas County, where St. Petersburg is located, also extended an offer to talk with the team, the Times said.

In 2007, the Rays quietly shopped a proposal for a $450 million, 35,000-seat stadium with a retractable, waterproof cloth-like covering that could be built on a waterfront site owned by the city where the Rays, at that time, conducted spring training.

That plan was derailed by the economic downturn, but since then, newer proposals have suggested that a new stadium could cost upwards of $600 million.

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