John Romano: Unless you have $3B to spare, a solution for the Rays could be tricky

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The mayor? He felt betrayed. The Rays? They felt cornered.

The community? Based on social media chatter, residents felt angry and bewildered. Maybe angry and stunned. Also, just plain angry.

The team’s decision to pull out of a $6.5 billion redevelopment deal that included a baseball stadium on the Tropicana Field site led to lots of hurt feelings, accusations and condemnations.

More importantly, it may have sabotaged Tampa Bay’s best last hope for a new ballpark.

That’s what the Trop property was, you know. It wasn’t the ideal site. It wasn’t the favorite site of the team or Major League Baseball. It wasn’t a popular site with most people living outside of downtown St. Pete.

But it was the easiest place to get a stadium built.

And now that safety net has been shredded like the Trop roof.

There’s a reason that the Rays begged, pleaded and negotiated with St. Pete officials to allow them to look in Hillsborough County a dozen years ago. Tampa is more centrally located and has a much larger corporate base.

And there’s a reason the Rays returned to the Trop site after flirting with potential stadium locations in Ybor City, Channelside, Tampa Heights and West Shore. There were greater public funding mechanisms and lucrative real estate deals in St. Pete’s Historic Gas Plant District that made a subpar location look more attractive for an owner with limited resources.

But now those funding attributes are in jeopardy because of the timing of the team’s pending cancellation of stadium construction.

For St. Pete Mayor Ken Welch, this deal was a chance to fulfill the promises of economic opportunities made to residents of the Gas Plant neighborhood — where Welch grew up — in the 1980s. The stadium was the centerpiece, but it was not a standalone venture.

Welch is still motivated to build on that land. Possibly before the team’s lease is up after the 2028 season, but certainly soon afterward. While that does not preclude the possibility of a baseball stadium rising from the ashes, it makes it much less likely.

Welch made it clear that he no longer wants to be in business with Rays owner Stuart Sternberg, and that may mean he is not amenable to providing money for a major refurbishing of the Trop in exchange for a 10-year lease extension as the team has proposed. It’s possible a stadium deal could be forged if Sternberg sells, but the clock is ticking and there is no indication a sale is imminent.

“I’ve always, in my mind, said it needs to happen in the next one or two years to give us some certainty going forward,” Welch said. “I wish it would happen sooner than that. But at some point we are going to stop holding up the development of those 86 acres for the benefit of the community. It’s been 40 years. It’s been long enough.”

As much as fans want to discuss the merits of a stadium in downtown St. Petersburg versus the possibilities of Ybor City compared to the potential of West Shore or the appeal of the fairgrounds, that two-decade argument won’t matter if the money issue isn’t solved.

The real question is not where to build a stadium, but how it gets built. Or, more to the point, who pays for it.

Yes, that sounds like an obvious observation. And yet, the debate is often framed as if all locations are created equal when it comes to prying open the checkbook. And that has not been true in the past.

St. Pete and Pinellas County officials offered the Rays $740 million in construction and infrastructure costs to build at the Trop site. Maybe that plan can be revived for a new ownership group, but the makeup of both the City Council and County Commission has changed since those funds were approved, and it doesn’t seem as if newly elected officials are fans of using public funds for a stadium.

Which brings us back to Tampa. And even less enthusiasm for spending public money.

Hillsborough does not have the same pot of tourism dollars that Pinellas has, which is strike one. Tampa and Hillsborough officials also need to be mindful of future facility requests from the Bucs and Lightning, which is strike two. And, unlike St. Pete, there would not be the same sense of urgency or loss in Tampa if the Rays packed their bags and left. Strike three.

Now, there has been a lot of optimism in recent weeks about Tampa-based ownership groups that might bid for the Rays and build a stadium using mostly private funds. If that happens, it would be fantastic. It would also be highly unusual.

The Rays have not set a price for selling the team — they haven’t even acknowledged that the team is for sale — but somewhere between $1.5 billion and $1.8 billion would seem logical. And the cost of a stadium would also be somewhere in the $1.5 billion range.

That means a prospective ownership group would need at least $3 billion to buy the Rays and build a stadium.

Major League Baseball has not seen anything close to that kind of commitment from a new ownership group in a market this size. Particularly in a state that has struggled to draw fans.

The last four stadiums built in baseball since 2010 got roughly 50% or more of their financing from public funds. And none of those stadiums were built by owners who were purchasing the team at the same time.

In other words, it’s a longshot to think an ownership group in Tampa could buy the Rays and get a stadium built without significant contributions from the city and county.

If you were angry about the stadium deal falling apart in St. Pete this week, you had every right.

And now that anger should be morphing into real concern.

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