{"id":676879,"date":"2026-04-16T11:46:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/676879\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T11:46:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:46:31","slug":"hillsborough-hosts-workshop-meeting-on-rays-stadium-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/676879\/","title":{"rendered":"Hillsborough hosts workshop meeting on Rays stadium district"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0A special workshop meeting focused on the Tampa Bay Rays will take place on Thursday.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

Hillsborough County will be hosting a special workshop meeting focused on the Tampa Bay Rays and their proposed new stadium
\n
It is estimated the proposed Rays stadium district covers about 113-acres, including apartments, offices, retail, dining and entertainment<\/p>\n

The Rays have said they\u00a0intend on paying a minimum of 50% of the cost of the ballpark, with the other 50% potentially coming from\u00a0a tourist development tax, facility charges or ticket surcharges<\/p>\n

The workshop starts on Thursday at 1:30 p.m. at the County Center<\/p>\n

The workshop<\/a> is expected to outline a few impacts the team\u2019s new stadium may have on Hillsborough County and the surrounding area. Right now, the team has a proposed site at Hillsborough College off of Dale Mabry.<\/p>\n

Everything from economic impact to community investment for this new stadium will be talked about. Hillsborough County is hoping to fine-tune the potential impacts the Ray\u2019s proposed stadium will have on the area.<\/p>\n

The company leading the planning, designing and engineering of the stadium is AECOM, which is estimating the stadium district covers about 113-acres in size. This will include apartments, offices, retail, dining and entertainment.<\/p>\n

The 30-year fiscal impact is estimated to be about $2.2 billion and direct economic impacts are estimated to be about $63 billion in output, $19 billion in wage earnings and create about 7,400 jobs.<\/p>\n

As for who will pay for the new stadium, the Rays have said they intend on paying a minimum of 50% of the cost of the ballpark. They have also said they will redevelop the campus as a mixed-use campus district. The remaining 50% could come from a tourist development tax, facility charges or ticket surcharges, and investment earnings to name a few.<\/p>\n

Spectrum Bay News 9\u2019s Jeff Butera sat down with Hillsborough County Commissioner Joshua Wostal to hear what he thinks about the proposal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Rays are on a timeline and respectfully we did not ask them to come to Hillsborough County,\u201d said Wostal. \u201cThey came to us with an ask. For them to be rushing us and not asking or allowing the taxpayers to have multiple community meetings for input on the single largest taxpayer burden in the history of Hillsborough County is grossly disrespectful to the voters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also in AECOM\u2019s report, they say the city of Tampa could take on about 116 million square feet of development in the next 30 years. The stadium district, they estimate, could cover about 5.9 million square feet.<\/p>\n

In AECOM\u2019s report, they say there could be an 8% surcharge added to tickets more than $39. That would cost visitors about an extra $3.50.<\/p>\n

The community workshop will take place on Thursday at 1:30 p.m. at the County Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0A special workshop meeting focused on the Tampa Bay Rays will take place on Thursday. What…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[72998,5,85765,19859,4,169,297,10202,295,2550,68,2551,2549,35162,1542],"class_list":{"0":"post-676879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-rays","8":"tag-app-community","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-calvin-lewis","11":"tag-hillsborough-county","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-rays","15":"tag-rays-stadium","16":"tag-tampa","17":"tag-tampa-bay","18":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","19":"tag-tampabay","20":"tag-tampabayrays","21":"tag-trending-topics","22":"tag-vod"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116414226921811139","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676879","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=676879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}