{"id":605348,"date":"2026-03-04T08:19:49","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T08:19:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/605348\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T08:19:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T08:19:49","slug":"tampa-bay-rays-host-first-ever-community-sessions-on-proposed-hillsborough-community-college-ballpark-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/605348\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Rays host first-ever community sessions on proposed Hillsborough Community College ballpark site"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Brief<\/p>\n

The Tampa Bay Rays held a community meeting at Hillsborough College designed for feedback on their proposed $2.3 billion ballpark.<\/p>\n

Team leaders hope to break ground later this year and open the new stadium by the spring of 2029.<\/p>\n

The next community engagement session will be held Tuesday, March 10 at Jefferson High School.<\/p>\n

TAMPA – The Tampa Bay Rays<\/a> held a community engagement session on Tuesday night to discuss a proposed ballpark at Hillsborough<\/a> College\u2019s Dale Mabry campus.<\/p>\n

Fans, students and nearby neighbors gathered at the campus to hear details about the proposal. The meeting began with a video presentation showing renderings of the proposed stadium and the surrounding area.<\/p>\n

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Bill Apgar, a Rays fan from Oldsmar, came with countless questions.<\/p>\n

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“Is it going to be a safe environment?” he asked. “Is it going to be an environment that builds a community and are they going to have adequate parking?”<\/p>\n

What they’re saying<\/p>\n

Rays CEO Ken Babby said these meetings were designed to create an open dialogue with the community.<\/p>\n

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“This is a community conversation, an open conversation, an opportunity for us to gain feedback,” he said.<\/p>\n

The proposed stadium site is projected to cost about $2.3 billion. The Rays have committed to covering about half of the cost.<\/p>\n

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Although, it remains unclear where the rest of the funding would come from.<\/p>\n

Hillsborough College President Ken Atwater said the proposal could transform the campus and expand opportunities for students.<\/p>\n

“Everyone is aware that the Rays are really going to become a part of Hillsborough College,” he said.<\/p>\n

Timeline<\/p>\n

Team leaders hope to break ground on the project later this year. If construction moves forward as planned, the first pitch could take place in the spring of 2029.<\/p>\n

Sydney Weed, a lifelong Rays fan, was encouraged by plans to connect the stadium with the college community.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s really cool to see how they want to incorporate the community and the students here at HCC,” she said.<\/p>\n

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Babby believes this project could have a long-term impact across the Tampa Bay region.<\/p>\n

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“This is a multigenerational moment for Tampa Bay,” he concluded. “It\u2019s about creating something that\u2019s much bigger than baseball.”<\/p>\n

READ: Gov. DeSantis, cabinet designates 22 acres at Hillsborough College into Rays stadium talks<\/a><\/p>\n

What’s next<\/p>\n

The next two meetings will be held on Tuesday, March 10th and Wednesday, March 11th:<\/p>\n

Tuesday, March 10, 2026<\/p>\n

Jefferson High School Auditorium<\/p>\n

4401 W Cypress St. Tampa, FL 33607<\/p>\n

Wednesday, March 11, 2026<\/p>\n

5107 N 22nd St. Tampa, FL 33610<\/p>\n

The Source<\/p>\n

Information for this article was gathered from past stories by FOX13 and an article written by the Tampa Bay Times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brief The Tampa Bay Rays held a community meeting at Hillsborough College designed for feedback on their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,19823,35960,8183,4,297,2550,68,2551,2549,1966],"class_list":{"0":"post-605348","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-rays","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-community-engagement","10":"tag-hillsborough-college","11":"tag-jefferson-high-school","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-rays","14":"tag-tampa-bay","15":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","16":"tag-tampabay","17":"tag-tampabayrays","18":"tag-the-rays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116169935196172418","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605348","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=605348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}