Rays stadium at Tampa’s Hillsborough College could cost $2.3 billion | St. Petersburg

The Tampa Bay Rays have privately shared a new cost estimate for the stadium they’re hoping to build in Tampa: $2.3 billion, not including surrounding development.

That figure, told to a Tampa Bay Times reporter Jan. 27 by Tampa Sports Authority CEO Eric Hart, is $1 billion more than what the Rays had proposed to build a stadium in St. Petersburg two years ago.

It came out after a meeting of Sports Authority board members on Jan. 27, where Hart was peppered with questions about a preliminary agreement approved by Hillsborough College’s district board of trustees last week.

The agreement presents a roadmap of what needs to be negotiated before the Rays build a stadium and mixed-use development at its Dale Mabry campus. But the team has not publicly shared details of its plans, including what it intends to ask the public to contribute, or a stadium design and cost estimate.

Hart said the agency’s consultants are running numbers the Rays shared with them, and their analysis should help inform the public agency through upcoming negotiations. He said stadium construction firm Skanska is reviewing what he said was a $2.3 billion cost projection for the stadium by working with a price estimator. Another consultant, AECOM, is reviewing the proposed mixed-use development sought to complement the stadium.

Hart said the Rays are providing AECOM with an economic analysis that the team has done on both the stadium and mixed-use development, and the company is reviewing it. Hart said he has not seen that report.

Skanska has built MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, home of the New York Giants and the New York Jets, and other entertainment venues.

A spokesperson for the Rays did not immediately return phone calls and text messages seeking comment.

“We’re going to do our part. We’re going to write a big check. We already wrote a big one (a reported $1.7 billion) to buy the team. We’re going to write another one to build a ballpark,” Rays CEO Ken Babby said on a recent episode of the “Hunks Talking Junk” podcast.

“But we need a great public/private partnership where the community, whether it be the county or the city or both, the state, all come together to build something really special here for Tampa Bay. That’s how we’re thinking about it.”

Last March, the Rays under prior ownership walked away from a $6.5 billion development that included a $1.3 billion stadium. St. Petersburg and Pinellas County agreed to pay more than $700 million for the stadium and surrounding roads and sewers.

The Athletics’ baseball stadium in Las Vegas, slated to open for the 2028 season, is projected to cost $2 billion, per ESPN. That price tag has gone up considerably twice, rising from $1.5 billion to $1.75 billion to the current estimate.

Sports Authority board members, meeting as its finance committee, unanimously voted Jan. 27 to recommend asking Tampa and Hillsborough County to conduct their own economic study before considering any public subsidies on the Dale Mabry proposal. That request was led by its finance chairperson, Andy Scaglione, who made clear at a meeting earlier this month that the Sports Authority would not be a “rubber stamp.”

“Well, before you ask for public subsidies, you need to find out what’s going to go in the coffers. You know, what’s the … return on investment?” he said. “So that’s where I’m going with it. Without it, I don’t think you’re being good stewards of the [taxpayers’] money.”

Hart said there have not been negotiations, only talks about what the Rays are hoping to build. He said the Rays would like to work on a similar, nonbinding framework with the Sports Authority.

“That’s why you’re seeing me doing economic analysis, because I think that would give better answers to be able to answer all your questions,” Hart said. “So right now, I would tell you that there’s ingredients, but there’s no soup. So it might be premature for us to say they’re at a point or not. There’s nothing like that at that level.”

New board member C. Dennis Carlton Jr. seconded the motion for recommending an economic study. He said he wanted to know when the Sports Authority would have a seat at the negotiating table.

“They’re leaning on us as businessmen or whatever, to look at it and to come up with a good game plan that makes sense for this county and city and taxpayers,” he said.

Board member Joe Robinson spoke at last week’s Hillsborough College meeting in favor of the partnership with the Rays, calling it an “economic engine” that “will benefit the West Tampa area.” On Jan. 27, he expressed support for the study.

“It’s got to happen,” Robinson said.

Nine out of 11 members of the Sports Authority board attended the Jan. 27 meeting. Tampa City Council member Alan Clendenin and Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan, a proponent of bringing the Rays to Tampa or Hillsborough, are not members of the finance committee and did not attend the meeting. The full board will vote Feb. 3 on whether to recommend conducting an economic study to Tampa and Hillsborough County.

“Andy’s insightful questions … are very legitimate,” said board member Don DeFosset, as it relates to the tentative agreement approach by the Hillsborough College board. “It raises all those questions; it doesn’t answer everything.”