It is time for St. Petersburg to take control of its future
and develop a plan for the Tropicana Field site post 2028. A future that does
not include major league baseball.
The thought of losing baseball is not easy. Since
1908, when the St. Petersburg Saints played an exhibition game against the Cincinnati
Reds on the north side of Mirror Lake, followed by decades of spring training, the
‘burg has had a long history of baseball.
I get it. Like countless others, I was a foot soldier
in the baseball effort, serving on the Chamber of Commerce stadium committee in
the late 1980s and walking door to door getting petitions signed for a major
league stadium. We attended the groundbreaking for what was then called the Pinellas
Suncoast Dome and the opening day for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. As mayor, I attended
many games — including the World Series — and once threw out the first ball to
my young son, Jacob. I even named my book on St. Petersburg history “Mangroves
to Major League.”
Yet, times were different when ‘St. Petersburg first pursued
major league baseball. Many felt that the city needed to kick-start our city
center. As it turned out, St. Pete’s downtown blossomed in a big way but, in my
view, baseball had a limited impact on that growth.
Professional sports teams can have many positive
effects on a city; however, for St. Petersburg, the cost of baseball has become
too great, and the benefit is too little.
The 30-year lease on the current stadium expires in a
few years. After a failed Rays effort to move the team to Tampa’s Ybor City in
2018, St. Petersburg and Pinellas County agreed to help fund a new Rays stadium
in St. Pete and turn over 86 acres of downtown land for redevelopment.
According to a city summary, over the coming decades, the deal required “Grand
Total Debt Payments” from St. Petersburg of over $700 million and debt service
from the county of over $580 million. That is a huge amount of public money.
Too huge. To make the deal even worse, the Rays flatly
refused to name the team after St. Petersburg, despite requesting hundreds of
millions of dollars from the city’s taxpayers.
Fortunately, the Rays recently dropped out of the deal.
According to media reports, the Rays later floated an idea for the city and
county to spend $400 million to renovate the Trop and extend the lease by 10 years.
Again, lots of taxpayer money for limited benefit. The better option is to let
the Rays leave at the end of their current lease, which appears to be through
the 2028 season.
It is time to focus on St Petersburg’s future and let
the Rays focus on their own.
Our city has one of the most vibrant, walkable, and
amazing downtowns in the country. With 86 acres of prime downtown land to
redevelop, we can come up with better options than continuing to fund hundreds
of millions of dollars of St. Petersburg taxpayer money to house a team named
after Tampa ~ a fine city, but not St. Pete - in an enterprise that has limited
economic impact on our downtown. One might wonder whether our large, bustling Saturday
Morning Farmer's Market provides a greater benefit for downtown St. Pete, without
baseball's huge price tag.
We can do better.
I suggest we consider less density — not more. It is
not as if we hear people in our neighborhoods saying: “Gee, I wish we could
cram lots more people, buildings, and traffic into downtown.” I hear quite the
opposite.
Rather than a baseball stadium, why don’t we build a significant
west downtown park -St. Pete Commons- on 30 acres, about a third of the available
86 acres. Think of the 50-acre Boston Common, a magnificent public park amenity.
Water features, outdoor concerts in the park, playgrounds, wading pools, bandstands,
monuments, carousels, gardens, coffee stands, fountains, and more. St. Pete
Commons would be about three times the size of St. Pete's Vinoy Park and five
times the size of North Straub Park. Our beautiful park system has been the
backbone of St. Petersburg’s success. With more people coming downtown, let’s
add more green space.
St. Pete Commons would be enjoyed by our residents 100
years from now, and beyond. If we build another baseball stadium today, how
long before talking begins again to replace it?
In addition to the Commons, weave the downtown road
grid into the site and create a pedestrian-friendly new urban design, with
businesses; multi- family housing; sidewalk cafes; hotels; live event venues;
public facilities; and cultural assets, such as the proposed African American
History Museum. The arts have anchored our downtown's renaissance of the past
25 years — let's build on that.
Rather than turning the site over to another master developer,
let's establish the 30-acre Commons, reconnect the road grid, and then let citizens,
and the market decide what should go on the remaining blocks. Limit the height
of buildings directly across from the Commons — as we did when we built much of
Beach Drive.
Sell the blocks to pay for the public improvements and
help fund more affordable housing citywide, a worthy effort and one of Mayor
Welch's top priorities.
Importantly, develop the Commons and the surrounding blocks
in a way that recognizes and acknowledges the history of the community that
once lived there, and honors the past promise of jobs on the site. Perhaps,
start with expanded health care facilities, providing good jobs at all economic
levels. Other employers would follow.
The end game? A 30-acre St. Pete Commons green space
for the entire community surrounded by jobs and amenities for our citizens. The
development would merge seamlessly into the rest of downtown and the nearby neighborhoods,
without spending over a billion dollars of taxpayer money. Sounds very St. Pete...
Rick Baker is a former two- term St.
Petersburg mayor.
Edited and revised using AI tools
This op-ed originally appeared in the Tampa Bay Times May 8 Note: The Tampa Bay Times has a PAY WALL you may not be able to read this article if you do not have a subscription.
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