Tampa Bay Rays CEO Ken Babby stood alongside Tampa Mayor Jane Castor and Hillsborough County Commission Chairman Ken Hagan in their first press conference since a tentative agreement to build a stadium in Tampa was reached.
The non-binding memorandum of understanding details plans to pay for the construction of a $2.3 billion indoor stadium on land now occupied by the Dale Mabry campus of Hillsborough College.
The team previously asked the local governments to pay for just under half the cost. That would have been around $1.1 billion.
But the agreement released Thursday caps the public contribution at $976 million.
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Now, it has to be approved by Hillsborough County commissioners and the Tampa City Council.
Then, Castor said, the hard part begins.
"Now, we just have to hash out every single detail," Castor said. "So in essence, this MOU is sort of the outline. Now we have to fill in each of those blanks."
According to the MOU, here's how the public financing shapes up:
Hillsborough County contribution — approximately $796 million
- $360 million — Community Investment Tax
- $303 million — Tourist Development Tax
- $103 million — other unspecified county funds
- $30 million (approximately) — HUD disaster recovery reimbursement funds
City of Tampa and CRA contribution — approximately $180 million
- $80 million — Community Investment Tax
- $100 million — CRA/tax-increment funding
The Rays have committed $1.27 billion plus all cost overruns.
Hillsborough County Commission chairman Ken Hagan said some of the specific details still have to be worked out.
"There has been significant give and take on both sides," Hagan said. "We've been doing everything we can, trying to be as creative as possible to identify sources that can be used that prevent us from raising taxes, from raising fees."
Hagan said no essential services will be affected. Most of the money would come from tourist bed taxes and a recently passed sales tax extension that had been marketed as not being used to build sports stadiums.
"This is a complex deal with 6 or 7 lengthy documents, everything from community benefit agreement to lease agreement, non-relocation agreement, finance agreement, 3 or 4 others I can't think of off the top of my head," Hagan said.
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Hagan added that they can never lose track that this would be both a significant private and public investment.
"And so it's incumbent on us to be meticulous and look into every detail, not just short-term but long-term," Hagan said.
Hagan stated the county would do nothing to put either taxpayers or the county's AAA credit rating at risk.
Hillsborough Commissioners are set to vote on approving the tentative agreement at their Wednesday meeting. If it passes, the Tampa City Council will follow on Thursday.
Castor said she expects it to pass.
"I can't imagine that any elected official would vote no on this memorandum of understanding," she said. "It's non-binding and in essence what it says is that we have crafted the basics of an agreement, and so to vote 'no' on something that is going to allow us to further hash out the details would be a mistake."
Babby also urged all parties to help reach a lasting deal.
"While we still have work to do, we urge the county commission this next week to move this deal forward, to move this process forward at both the county commission and the city council," he said. "We are here together today, standing as one committed to play baseball as the Tampa Bay Rays here in April of 2029."
The Rays had set a June 1 deadline to reach at least a tentative financing agreement. Their lease at St. Petersburg's Tropicana Field ends in 2028, so they want the new ballpark open by March 2029.
The deadline was spurred in part by a need to get $130 million in state funding to rebuild Hillsborough College on a corner of property and upgrade infrastructure and roads. No state money would go to stadium construction. Legislators have a deadline of the end of the month to come up with their budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year.
