{"id":531199,"date":"2026-01-21T17:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T17:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/531199\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T17:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T17:26:12","slug":"rays-begin-push-for-new-ballpark-at-hillsborough-college-site-but-questions-and-uncertainty-remain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/531199\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays begin push for new ballpark at Hillsborough College site, but questions and uncertainty remain"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rays\u2019 new owners<\/a> have \u201ctaken the first step<\/a> toward securing a new ballpark\u201d at the 113-acre Dale Mabry campus of Hillsborough College<\/a>, but past ballpark deals have \u201cmade it further and failed,\u201d and a \u201cnumber of big questions remain unanswered,\u201d according to Moske, Villamil & Marques of the TAMPA BAY TIMES. A \u201cbevy of local leaders and organizations must weigh in\u201d on the potential site over the coming months. The Hillsborough County Commission \u201cis pivotal\u201d to the public-private partnership the Rays are seeking, as they \u201ccontrol many of the public purse strings.\u201d Moske, Villamil & Marques note the city of Tampa\u2019s elected leaders would \u201calso have a say\u201d on the ballpark plans. And while some Tampa officials say that they are \u201cskeptical about spending taxpayer money\u201d on a ballpark, \u201cothers have outright rejected it.\u201d The Tampa Sports Authority \u201clikely would be involved in negotiations\u201d as well. If a deal is approved, the authority \u201cmay be engaged to manage\u201d the new ballpark and \u201cwork out shared parking arrangements between teams.\u201d The Florida Board of Education would \u201clikely also need to sign off on the project.\u201d With a ballpark at the Dale Mabry campus, the Rays would \u201chave two high-profile neighbors\u201d in the Yankees and the Buccaneers. Moske, Villamil & Marques write neither franchise \u201chas the authority to support or stymie a Rays deal, but their opinions will carry weight as talks progress\u201d (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 1\/21<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rays\u2019 new owners have \u201ctaken the first step toward securing a new ballpark\u201d at the 113-acre Dale…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,4,21959],"class_list":["post-531199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-sustainability"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115934264392459663","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}