Future of MLB's Tampa Bay Rays to come into focus with key meetings on $1.3B stadium project

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — The future of the Tampa Bay Rays is about to come into clearer focus as local officials begin public discussions over a planned $1.3 billion ballpark that would be the anchor of a much larger project to transform downtown St. Petersburg with affordable housing, a Black history museum, a hotel and office and retail space.

The St. Petersburg City Council will begin a detailed look Thursday at the plans by the Rays and the Hines development company for what the city calls the Historic Gas Plant Project. The name is a nod to the 86-acre (34-hectare) tract's history as a once-thriving Black community demolished for the Rays' current domed Tropicana Field and earlier for an interstate highway spur.

Mayor Ken Welch is St. Petersburg's first Black mayor and his family has roots in the Gas Plant neighborhood when the city was racially segregated. He said it's important to keep the Rays in the area and to restore promises of economic opportunity never met for minority residents after the businesses and families were forced out decades ago.

“I see it as a real opportunity to uplift the entire city,” Welch, a Democrat, said in an interview at City Hall. “This isn't just a stadium. This is a stadium surrounded by the largest development in the state of Florida, if not the nation.”