Rays To Pitch Stadium Funding Plan In Weeks

ST. PETERSBURG - The Rays are expected to provide a long-promised proposal as to how a new waterfront stadium should be paid for in a matter of weeks, a Rays official said today.

The timetable was provided by Michael Kalt, Rays vice president of development and business affairs, at a city council workshop today.

The workshop is part of a process to help the city council decide by June 5 whether the proposal for the 34,000-seat, $450 million stadium should be put before voters in a referendum in November.

A second workshop and a public hearing are scheduled for May 22.

City staff spent much of the workshop regurgitating what they said in a review of the Rays' proposal that was released Friday. And city council members asked questions without divulging their ultimate support.

The Rays submitted a preliminary plan March 11 for moving the stadium from Tropicana Field west of downtown to a bayfront site centered on the team's former spring training location, Al Lang Field, home of Progress Energy Park. As part of the plan, the 86-acre site at Tropicana Field would be redeveloped into a housing and retail complex.

City staff raised a range of issues - among them parking.

While the staff agrees with the Rays that 11,950 spaces will be needed, they believe the maximum walking distance to any of those spaces should be a half mile, not three quarters of a mile. The city also wants more entry points to the new stadium.

After the workshop, Kalt said none of these development issues were "deal-breakers."

"The major issue is financing," he said. He expects the Rays proposal to include money from the city, the county and the baseball team. Crucial is the revenue generated at Tropicana Field after the land there is redeveloped.

"We're looking at the hard dollars generated by Tropicana Field," he said, referring to property and sales tax revenue.

What the Rays are not expected to include in their financial plan is revenue the new waterfront park in downtown St. Petersburg will generate, he said.