{"id":126824,"date":"2026-01-21T20:06:37","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T20:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/126824\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T20:06:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T20:06:37","slug":"hillsborough-leaders-ok-up-to-358-5m-for-arena-renovations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/126824\/","title":{"rendered":"Hillsborough leaders OK up to $358.5M for arena renovations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TAMPA \u2014 Hillsborough County commissioners have unanimously approved a plan for long-term renovations at Benchmark International Arena.<\/p>\n<p>The county will invest as much as $358.5 million into the project at the venue, formerly known as Amalie Arena.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our community wants to keep the Tampa Bay Lightning in Tampa,&#8221; said Commissioner Christine Miller, who represents District 4. &#8220;They&#8217;ve invested heavily in our area, the surrounding area and the people of this community and the continuation of this investment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The deal will see the Lightning&#8217;s lease extend to 2043. It was originally set to expire in 2037.<\/p>\n<p>According to our newsgathering partner, the Tampa Bay Times, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tampabay.com\/news\/hillsborough\/2026\/01\/21\/lightning-tampabay-hockey-stadium-arena-hillsborough-bucs-rays-county-commissioners\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the team is required to spend an additional $75 million<\/a> on arena renovations to fully unlock the county\u2019s commitment.<\/p>\n<p>If the team leaves Tampa, it would have to pay millions in penalties, the Times reported.<\/p>\n<p>The Tampa Sports Authority, the arena\u2019s landlord, approved the deal earlier this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA \u2014 Hillsborough County commissioners have unanimously approved a plan for long-term renovations at Benchmark International Arena. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3140,1238,276,115,99,275,110,135,862,137,136],"class_list":["post-126824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-sports","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-spectrum-news-staff","tag-sports","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-lightning","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}