The Tampa Bay Rays’ proposed stadium plan could move the team into an echelon of ballpark budgeting — both in final cost and public contribution — few in Major League Baseball have reached.
The first estimate for a stadium on Hillsborough College’s Dale Mabry campus is $2.3 billion, not including the surrounding development. The team’s owners say they plan to pay for at least half of the stadium cost. For the rest — about $1.15 billion — the team is looking to Hillsborough County and the city of Tampa.
Can Hillsborough and Tampa afford those costs?
It’s unclear. But a review of potential known sources shows a deal could hinge on taxes and fees generated by the development itself. Projections for these levies have not yet been made available.
The Tampa Bay Times spoke with city and county officials and employees, as well as several independent experts, to determine how much money could be drawn from the various public funding sources the team has identified. A Rays spokesperson did not return a phone call or text message requesting comment for this story.
“I feel as though what I’ve been presented with is going to bring the needed revenue to do the debt services and be able to do what we need to do for infrastructure,” said Tampa City Council chairperson Alan Clendenin, who also serves on the Tampa Sports Authority. “But I still need to see that all spelled out on paper.”
Here’s what we know about potential costs and the pots of money that could get tapped.
Payment structure
Major stadium projects in the United States are typically financed with 30-year municipal bonds, said Victor Matheson, a sports economics professor at the College of the Holy Cross. Currently, he said, they have an interest rate of about 4.5% to 4.7%.
At a 4.5% interest rate, a $1.15 billion public contribution would require 30 annual payments of roughly $70.6 million, resulting in a $2.1 billion price tag, including $968 million in interest.
But interest rates fluctuate, so the annual payment could be different when it’s time to pay. At a 3% interest rate, the yearly payment for a 30-year bond would be $58.6 million, resulting in a $1.76 billion public funding price tag.
And the per-year cost could change drastically depending on the structure of the deal. While 30-year municipal bonds are common, front-loading payments could also be an option. Neither the county nor the city has discussed a payment structure.
The bottom line: The city and county could be on the hook for yearly debt payments of $58 million to $70 million.
Community Investment Tax
The Rays, according to a document prepared by Commissioner Ken Hagan’s office, suggest that Hillsborough use some of the unplanned revenue increases from its half-percent sales tax, which is typically used to fund infrastructure and public buildings, to pay for the Rays stadium.
Unplanned revenue is considered any growth that exceeds the county’s assumed annual growth rate, which is 3%. If growth falls short of 3%, the Rays would not have any unplanned revenue to tap into that year.
The suggestion has spurred disagreement among county commissioners, who control the fund.
Commissioners Joshua Wostal and Chris Boles objected to the potential use of the tax earlier this month during a meeting where commissioners voted unanimously to pursue negotiations with the Rays.
Wostal noted that before voters approved the renewal of the tax in 2024, commissioners said it would not be used for new professional sports facilities.
But Hagan said from the dais that the tax will be essential to any stadium deal.
“This agreement does not happen without the CIT,” he said. “It just doesn’t.”
The tax, according to budget information provided by Hillsborough County, generated $2.5 billion from 2004 to 2024. That’s $88.3 million more than what the county anticipated.
Annually, that’s an average surplus of about $4.2 million.
There were major decreases during the 2008 economic recession and the COVID-19 pandemic, but the tax rebounded and ultimately grew by an average of 4.07% in those decades.
The tax’s past performance provides insight into how much money might be available to the Rays if its unplanned revenue is allotted to them.
While Hagan said the tax would be critical earlier this month, he did not mention it when referring to sources “likely to be essential components of any funding framework” in a written statement sent to the Times. Hagan noted tourist tax revenues, user fees and money from the Drew Park Community Redevelopment Area.
Hillsborough County Administrator Bonnie Wise, who is responsible for leading negotiations with the team, declined to comment for this story. Wise, through a spokesperson, directed a reporter to the document from Hagan’s office.
The tax renewal approved by voters in 2024 starts in December of this year and will run through 2041. Voters would have to approve any extension. In 2024, voters OK’d renewing the tax by a narrow margin.
Over the next 15 years, Hillsborough projects the tax will produce $2.66 billion.
The planned funds are slated to go toward an array of public safety and transportation initiatives, and tapping into non-surplus funds would be met with further scrutiny from commissioners.
The bottom line: We don’t know how much, if at all, the tax will exceed the assumed 3% growth rate in the future. But we know that if Hillsborough had been paying off a Rays stadium over the past two decades, there would have been an average of about $4 million available annually from the tax’s unplanned revenue.
Sixth ‘cent’ of the Tourist Development Tax
Hillsborough’s 6% tax on short-term lodging is split evenly six ways, with each percentage of the tax considered its own “cent.” The Rays have identified the sixth cent of the tax as a potential funding source.
Added in 2019, the sixth cent is primarily committed to funding improvements to tourist attractions and Visit Tampa Bay, the city and county’s tourism marketing agency.
It generated just over $12 million in fiscal year 2025, with money going toward Visit Tampa Bay, the Tampa Convention Center and other tourist attractions. About $4.7 million went unspent.
Recent years have seen leftover revenue. Since 2021, there has been at least a $3.2 million difference in revenue and spending each year.
The sixth cent is projected to generate nearly $13 million in 2026. Nearly $8 million of that is budgeted for tourist attractions. A similar number was budgeted in 2025, but only $2.2 million was spent.
The county, however, will likely be cautious not to spend the entirety of the sixth cent’s annual budget, as surplus revenue allows it to grow its reserves.
Hillsborough entered 2026 with $21.78 million available in sixth cent reserves. County commissioners could approve the use of reserve money, but they may be more likely to readjust the sixth cent budget instead. Even if the reserves were to be completely emptied for a ballpark, it would represent less than $1 million extra annually over 30 years.
The most drastic action Hillsborough could take would be to dedicate the sixth cent entirely to a Rays ballpark, as it did with the fourth cent — which is dedicated to maintaining Raymond James Stadium and Steinbrenner Field — and the fifth cent — which is reserved for Benchmark International Arena.
But that would likely be a tough sell for non-baseball fans. Visit Tampa Bay will continue to need funding, and the convention center is set to receive $2 million annually through 2027. Other attractions, like the Straz Center and the Tampa Museum of Art, also frequently receive sixth cent money.
Wostal, who opposes the use of Community Investment Tax funds for the deal, said he is open to reallocating tourist tax funds to accommodate the Rays.
“I’m not trying to be the opposition,” he said. “I’m trying to protect the taxpayer.”
The bottom line: At the lower end, the county could allocate something close to the $2 million it has given to the convention center in recent years. At the upper end, it could choose to dedicate nearly all of the sixth cent’s revenue — projected to generate nearly $14 million in 2027 — to the stadium.
Community Redevelopment Agency
The Dale Mabry campus sits in a corner of the Drew Park Community Redevelopment Area, where local property tax dollars are funneled back into the region to address blight.
Money from the redevelopment agency relies on tax increment financing, which leverages future values to pay for current projects. The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, comprised of the seven City Council members, decides how those gains are spent.
The roughly 830-acre area received less than $4 million in tax increment funding in fiscal year 2026, according to Cedric McCray, Tampa’s Community Redevelopment Agency director, who said he has not had direct conversations with the Rays about funding.
Officials say that number would grow significantly as the Rays’ development is built and begins to generate property tax revenue.
“Unlike other CRA’s, Drew Park has seen minimal improvement since its creation 20 years ago, and there’s zero indication that would change in the foreseeable future,” Hagan said in a written statement to the Times. “However, with this generational development, Rays ownership will make a direct (at least $8 billion) investment which will dramatically transform Drew Park and the surrounding area.”
In the Rays’ failed deal with St. Petersburg and Pinellas County, for example, St. Petersburg planned to spend more than $212 million in tax increment revenue from its Intown Community Redevelopment Area on a stadium and $130 million on infrastructure in the Gas Plant district.
The amount of money that will become available to Tampa and Hillsborough is unclear and layered with nuance. City leaders said they have yet to see projections of the anticipated growth.
The stadium itself — which the team says it hopes to have ready by April 2029 — will be exempt from property taxes. The surrounding taxable development of restaurants, residences and retail will likely take longer to build.
“That’s backwards,” said Geoffrey Propheter, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Denver. “To solve that issue, you would actually want the ancillary stuff to come first, and the stadium to come last — but that’ll never happen for a variety of political reasons.”
There’s no guarantee, Propheter said, that the taxable parts of the project will be built on time.
The Drew Park redevelopment area also is set to be terminated in 2034. That deadline could be extended, McCray said, but likely only through 2043.
Clendenin, the Tampa City Council chairperson, said that shouldn’t be a problem for funding. The city and county could form an interlocal agreement to use property tax revenue for the stadium after the deadline.
“A tax dollar is a tax dollar is a tax dollar,” he said.
The bottom line: In 2026, the area got around $4 million in tax increment funding. Local leaders say that number will grow with the Rays’ development. But there are too many unknowns to project how much money the redevelopment area could bring in.
Other funding sources
The Rays have identified several other streams of public money that the city and county could tap — or create. It’s not clear how much of a dent those sources could make in annual debt payments.
First could be a special assessment fee for hotels and motels in the West Shore area. The amount of the fee is not yet clear.
Tampa in 2017 charged a $1.50 per-night, per-room hotel fee in downtown and Ybor City, which generated more than $1 million in annual revenue.
But some representatives in the Florida House said the fee violated the state’s constitution, which prohibits municipalities from imposing taxes on economic activity without the Legislature’s approval. Others worried it would set a precedent for creating special taxing districts that could generate money to build stadiums. A Hillsborough judge in 2020 struck down the ordinance.
The city or county could approve a community development district, a government entity that can issue bonds. Developers often create the districts to finance infrastructure projects.
The Rays reportedly are looking to the Florida Sports Development Program, which could net the team $3 million annually for up to 30 years, according to state statutes. Lawmakers attempted to cancel the program in 2021, noting that it had not approved any funding for any project in the seven years the program had existed. The legislative effort failed, so the program could still potentially be tapped. Funding must be approved by the state Legislature.
The document from Hagan’s office includes disaster recovery funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Wostal said that is an inappropriate request.
“That is for people who had their lives devastated,” he said.
The document also mentions the possibility of a rental car surcharge, but Hagan said the tax “doesn’t appear to be likely.”
If any public money goes toward the construction of the stadium, it will be owned by Hillsborough County, which would lease the ballpark to the Rays. Down the road from the Rays’ proposed site, the Buccaneers pay $3.5 million per year to rent Raymond James Stadium. That number will double to $7 million if the team chooses to extend its lease.
User fees, like ticket surcharges and an entertainment retail use tax, are presented as an option, too. That means spending at the stadium could help pay for it.
Adding up the funds
How close does all of this bring Hillsborough and Tampa to potential annual debt payments of $58 to $70 million? Here’s what we know about the known available sources.
Community Investment Tax: $4 million annually, based on the average surplus revenue from 2004 to 2024.
Sixth cent of the Tourist Development Tax: Up to $14 million, based on the county’s projections for 2027.
The Florida Sports Development Program: A maximum of $3 million per year.
That’s $21 million per year — or between $37 and $50 million short.
Bridging the gap will mean significant money would have to come from the community redevelopment area, special taxing districts, hotel and user fees, the Rays’ lease and other sources — all of which hinge on projections that the team and local leaders have yet to produce or publicize.
So while a bevy of uncertainties still swirl around the project, one thing is clear: A Rays’ financing deal will be a complicated and likely contentious patchwork quilt of funding sources.