The Tampa City Council could take up a revised framework for the Tampa Bay Rays stadium proposal as soon as Aug. 27, with city, county and team negotiators nearing agreement on documents that would reshape Tampa’s role in the proposed deal.
Council Chair Alan Clendenin told Florida Politics that negotiations have been moving nearly nonstop and that only a handful of issues remain unresolved.
“If I was a betting man, I would bet that it is going to appear on the 27th,” Clendenin said.
Clendenin said city staff, Hillsborough County, the Rays and lawyers involved in the negotiations are still working through the final details, with definitive documents potentially arriving “any hour or any day.”
The emerging framework appears likely to incorporate significant portions of Council Member Bill Carlson’s proposed restructuring of Tampa’s financial participation in the stadium development.
Clendenin said Carlson’s push to create a tax increment financing district around the proposed Hillsborough College redevelopment and carve that property out of the existing Drew Park Community Redevelopment Area reflects the direction negotiations are heading.
“I think what you’re hearing with the TIF and carving out the property is the direction that we’re going,” Clendenin said, while cautioning that “the devil’s always in the details.”
The approach could address one of Carlson’s biggest objections to the framework Council considered earlier this year, and potentially grant the Rays a swing vote necessary to move the ballpark project forward.
Carlson joined Clendenin and Council Members Luis Viera and Naya Young in May to advance a nonbinding memorandum of understanding, while making clear that his vote did not guarantee support for a final agreement. However, he later joined Lynn Hurtak, Guido Maniscalco and Charlie Miranda in blocking a land-use measure needed to advance redevelopment of the Hillsborough College property.
That vote left the proposal without the four-member Council majority needed to move forward, and helped trigger direct negotiations between Carlson and Rays CEO Ken Babby over changes Carlson wanted incorporated into Tampa’s portion of the deal. Those talks now appear to be shaping the revised framework.
Under the direction described by Clendenin, the Hillsborough College redevelopment property would be carved out of the Drew Park CRA and placed under a separate tax increment financing district structure. At the same time, the remaining Drew Park CRA could be extended, allowing redevelopment dollars to continue flowing into the surrounding neighborhood.
Clendenin said that could turn the stadium development into a broader benefit for Drew Park rather than allowing the project itself to consume redevelopment dollars otherwise available to the neighborhood.
“When this development on the Hillsborough College campus happens, what we’re going to look for is that percolated effect that goes throughout Drew Park,” he said.
Tax increment financing allows local governments to capture future increases in property tax revenue within a defined area as property values rise. Under the concept Carlson has promoted, some of the new revenue generated by redevelopment surrounding the stadium could be used to support infrastructure or other expenses associated with the district.
That would shift Tampa’s contribution toward revenue generated by future redevelopment rather than relying as heavily on existing CRA dollars.
Carlson has also pushed a broader reconsideration of Tampa’s CRA structure, including whether the Downtown CRA should continue receiving all of the property tax growth generated within its boundaries. Carlson has proposed capping the amount of tax increment flowing into the Downtown CRA, arguing that doing so could free millions of dollars annually for roads and other infrastructure elsewhere in Tampa.
Clendenin, however, said that discussion should be separated from the Rays negotiations.
“I think the Downtown CRA is a separate discussion,” he said.
The more immediate Rays framework is expected to focus on the Hillsborough College property, Drew Park and the financing district surrounding the proposed development.
If negotiators finish the documents in time for an Aug. 27 Council meeting, Tampa would likely act before Hillsborough County. Clendenin said County Commissioners could take up the documents at a subsequent regular meeting or potentially during a specially called meeting.
“The city is going to probably vote first, and then the county will vote after us on the definitive documents. That being said, this is a major project, so this is just one more step along the path. It’s not the last step,” Clendenin said. “But this will be really, truly, the starting gate. For lack of a better word, no turning back.”
That vote would still not finish the stadium deal. Hillsborough College has separately resubmitted the land-use application needed to put redevelopment of the Dale Mabry Campus property back into the city’s review process after the Council blocked the previous effort.
The Rays are proposing a roughly 31,000-seat stadium to be developed at the campus as the centerpiece of a larger mixed-use redevelopment. The ballpark itself is expected to cost about $2.3 billion, with Hillsborough County accounting for the largest share of the proposed local public contribution.
Clendenin emphasized that the land-use process is separate from the stadium agreements currently under negotiation.
There would also eventually be action involving Tampa’s CRA Board to implement changes involving Drew Park and the proposed financing district.
But Clendenin said the City Council vote on the negotiated documents would be the pivotal next step.
“The Council vote is going to be the key vote here,” he said.