After months of negotiations, revisions and uncertainty, the Tampa Bay Rays’ proposed Tampa stadium deal is finally on paper — with the financing, obligations and political risks laid bare ahead of next week’s votes.

The long-awaited definitive agreements provide the clearest picture yet of how Tampa, Hillsborough County and the Rays intend to finance a roughly $2.36 billion ballpark project at Hillsborough College’s Dale Mabry campus, the centerpiece of a larger mixed-use redevelopment.

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor announced on social media that the agreement “marks a historic step forward for Tampa & our entire region,” and said the Rays, Tampa and Hillsborough officials have “worked incredibly hard to reach a deal that keeps the Rays in Tampa Bay, protects taxpayers & unlocks the potential for transformational development in our city.”

The paperwork arrives less than a week before what could become a decisive series of votes over Rays stadium funding.

The Tampa City Council voted 4-3 Thursday night to put the agreements on its Aug. 27 agenda, with Alan Clendenin, Naya Young, Luis Viera and Bill Carlson supporting the move. Tampa’s Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) has also scheduled a special meeting that day, and Hillsborough County Commissioners are expected to follow quickly with a vote of their own.

The documents put actual terms behind a deal that has repeatedly shifted during negotiations, particularly on Tampa’s side of the equation.

Under the nonbinding agreement approved earlier this year, local public funding was capped at $976 million, with Hillsborough County contributing up to $796 million and Tampa and its CRA responsible for another $180 million combined.

The final development agreement keeps the county contribution at up to $796 million but substantially reworks Tampa’s piece, replacing the earlier $180 million structure with an $80 million direct city contribution and a separate financing plan tied to future redevelopment around the stadium.

“Today, due to the remarkable determination of many throughout this process, we have definitive documents that will serve as the framework to deliver a new ballpark, a reimagined Hillsborough College campus, and a privately financed neighborhood where we can all work, live, learn, and play,” Tampa Bay Rays CEO Ken Babby said.

“These terms — if approved — will deliver exceptional benefits and protections to the community well above and beyond the initial memorandum of understanding, thanks to the officials and staffs at Hillsborough County and the City of Tampa. The Rays are grateful for their diligence over the past nine months, and especially thankful for their ideas and feedback. It’s the kind of community leadership we should all applaud and appreciate. We listened, and the result of our collaboration is a deal that improved each week for the public, is fair for all involved, and supports our goals.”

What’s the deal?

The deal delivers on many of the promises negotiators have been making in recent weeks, most notably changing the source of Tampa’s $80 million contribution from the earlier proposal and leaving the Rays responsible for cost overruns.

Tampa’s $80 million share would come from legally available city revenues in four $20 million installments through 2029. Unlike the earlier proposal, the definitive agreement does not identify Community Investment Tax dollars as the funding source.

The earlier plan also contemplated another $100 million tied directly to the Drew Park Community Redevelopment Area. That approach has instead been replaced by a new tax-increment structure around the Hillsborough College redevelopment. In simple terms, future property-tax growth generated by the project would help support public infrastructure and financing around the stadium site through a new Ballpark Community Development District.

The documents also put commitments behind a broader package of CRA changes. Carlson has pushed to extend several CRAs and reduce how much future property-tax growth is locked into the Downtown CRA, arguing the changes could free additional revenue for roads, flooding and other infrastructure elsewhere in Tampa.

The agreement delivers much of that package, though not all of it.

The stadium property would be carved out of the Drew Park CRA, Tampa’s future contribution to the Downtown CRA would be cut in half after accounting for existing obligations, and the East Tampa and West Tampa CRAs would be extended as far as state law allows. The remaining Drew Park CRA, however, would not be extended.

Those changes still require separate government action, but they are more than informal promises. The agreement makes the required district, CRA and tax-increment approvals conditions of the Rays’ obligations under the deal.

The $2.36 billion project budget also leaves the Rays responsible for costs beyond the public contributions, including all design costs and cost overruns. The package also includes a non-relocation agreement barring the Rays from relocating outside Hillsborough County while the agreement is in effect.

A separate Community Benefits Agreement splits the value of agreed benefits 65% to Hillsborough County and 35% to Tampa, and the preliminary project schedule tees up a planned 2029 opening for the new stadium.

2027 politics creep into the stadium talks

Carlson’s involvement appears to have ruffled the feathers of his political opponents behind the scenes.

While Thursday night’s vote offered the clearest indication yet that Tampa may have the four votes needed to advance the deal, recent changes also brought new uncertainty on the county side. Tampa’s upcoming mayoral race also surfaced in the criticism, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Hillsborough County Commissioners Chris Boles and Christine Miller, who both supported the nonbinding agreement in May, expressed reservations to the Times about the revised proposal before the definitive documents were released.

Boles told the Times he was prepared to vote against the deal as it stood Thursday. Miller stopped short of that commitment, but explicitly brought Tampa’s upcoming mayoral race into the conversation.

“Right now, the details seem to change every time it suits one man’s run for Mayor,” Miller told the Times, referring to Carlson’s bid for Tampa Mayor in 2027.

The remark pulled Tampa’s next mayoral race into the stadium debate just as the funding deal rounds third base.

Carlson criticized the pushback as a political attack, arguing campaign politics were being injected into the stadium negotiations.

But with the proposed agreement now public, elected officials no longer have to debate the deal in the abstract. They have the terms they will actually be asked to vote up or down on next week.

What happens next?

Tampa’s CRA and City Council are scheduled to meet Aug. 27 for votes related to the deal.

Hillsborough County Commissioners are expected to take up the proposal shortly afterward, potentially later that day or Aug. 28.

Approval from both governments would not complete the process, although it would approve the central funding agreement and clear one of the project’s biggest remaining hurdles.

Hillsborough College has already resubmitted the land-use application needed to redevelop its Dale Mabry campus after Council rejected the previous effort.

CRA amendments, creation of the new development district, tax-increment financing and other implementation measures would still move through separate proceedings.

For months, one of the biggest unanswered questions surrounding the Rays proposal was what the final deal would actually say.

Now those terms are on paper, and the remaining question is whether the votes are there to make them stick.