St. Petersburg, FL – St. Petersburg officials say federal disaster funding is expected to help offset a portion of the costly repairs required at Tropicana Field following severe hurricane damage.<\/p>\n
City administrators confirmed that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has identified approximately $16.5 million dollars in eligible reimbursement related to repairs at the city owned stadium. <\/p>\n
The damage occurred during Hurricane Milton in October 2024, when high winds tore large sections of the stadium\u2019s roof and caused significant interior damage. <\/p>\n
The storm rendered the facility unusable for Major League Baseball games, forcing the Tampa Bay Rays to relocate home games for the 2025 season.<\/p>\n
Since the hurricane, St. Petersburg has approved nearly $60 million dollars in contracts to repair and stabilize Tropicana Field. <\/p>\n
The work includes roof reconstruction, cleanup of water damage, structural inspections, and security improvements needed to safely reopen the venue.<\/p>\n
City officials have stated that repair costs could continue to increase as construction progresses and additional issues are discovered.<\/p>\n
Insurance has covered part of the expenses, with the city receiving roughly $10.8 million dollars in insurance payments tied to the storm damage. <\/p>\n
FEMA reimbursement would supplement those funds, but officials cautioned that the $16.5 million figure is not final and the timeline for payment remains uncertain. <\/p>\n
Federal reimbursement typically occurs after projects are completed and reviewed.<\/p>\n
St. Petersburg owns Tropicana Field and is contractually obligated under its lease agreement to maintain the stadium for the Rays, whose lease runs through at least 2028. <\/p>\n
City leaders say they are working to complete major repairs in time for the Rays to return for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
Officials emphasized that FEMA funding would help reduce the financial burden on taxpayers but would not cover the full cost of the repairs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Petersburg, FL – St. Petersburg officials say federal disaster funding is expected to help offset a portion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[72641,72640,33603,47,3790,5954,20772,29880,202,204,203,199,201,200,8125],"class_list":["post-150609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-city-administrators","tag-disaster-funding","tag-federal-emergency-management-agency","tag-fl","tag-hurricane-damage","tag-officials","tag-portion","tag-repairs","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tropicana-field"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150609","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=150609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}