{"id":242600,"date":"2026-04-23T00:48:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T00:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/242600\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T00:48:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T00:48:26","slug":"tampa-sports-authority-raises-concerns-over-rays-stadium-deal-costs-parking-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/242600\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Sports Authority raises concerns over Rays stadium deal costs, parking, housing"},"content":{"rendered":"

New questions are emerging about a proposed Tampa Bay Rays stadium deal<\/a> after the Tampa Sports Authority raised concerns about costs, parking and what taxpayers could ultimately be on the hook for.<\/p>\n

The Tampa Sports Authority will not vote on the deal, but it is consulting with the city of Tampa and Hillsborough County ahead of their decisions. What is ultimately approved could directly impact the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Raymond James Stadium, which the authority manages.<\/p>\n

At the center of the discussion is a proposal that could rely on more than $1 billion in public funding. During Tuesday’s Tampa Sports Authority finance committee meeting, members said the true cost could be significantly higher once interest is factored in.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou gotta add 40% to these numbers when you add interest,” said Andy Scaglione, chair of the finance committee. “So it\u2019s not a $1 billion subsidy, it\u2019s $1.4 B when you add interest.”<\/p>\n

One major sticking point is how that funding would be structured. The Rays are asking for public money up front \u2014 unlike previous deals with other teams that reimbursed costs over time.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow the Rays are saying, ‘give us money up front.’ They don\u2019t want a reimbursement. If they did, it would be a more doable deal. I think they need to take notes from the lightning,\u201d said Joseph Robinson, a committee member.<\/p>\n

Committee members also raised concerns about housing assumptions in the economic impact study, specifically whether affordable housing would be included.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hearing the team saying they\u2019re going to do affordable housing, based on March 10, 2026, at Jefferson High School and then I read your report and it says all market rent. Which is correct?\u201d Scaglione questioned Dillion Gilman, the AECOM analyst who worked on the study.<\/p>\n

In response, Gilman said he was not given any information indicating affordable housing would be part of the plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were never provided any assumptions that any portion of the potential multifamily program would be affordable,\u201d Gilman said.<\/p>\n

Parking also remains a major concern, particularly with the proposed site located across from Raymond James Stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a problem,” said Eric Hart, President and CEO of Tampa Sports Authority. “They\u2019ve [the Rays] sent us a proposed parking plan but we have not gone back to them. We\u2019re probably about 3000 spaces [short], we\u2019ve got a lot of work to do.”<\/p>\n

Leaders also pushed back on claims that scheduling conflicts would not be an issue, pointing to the overlap between Rays games and events at Raymond James Stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to be on the record that that keeps being said, that\u2019s not going to be a problem, we are going to have conflict. We are,\u201d Hart said.<\/p>\n

The full Tampa Sports Authority board is expected to discuss the plans next week. The city and county are looking to vote on a potential deal in early May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New questions are emerging about a proposed Tampa Bay Rays stadium deal after the Tampa Sports Authority raised…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1571,97898,107093,11708,107092,135,2964,3815,137,136,48412],"class_list":{"0":"post-242600","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-affordable-housing","9":"tag-andy-scaglione","10":"tag-joseph-robinson","11":"tag-raymond-james-stadium","12":"tag-sports-authority","13":"tag-tampa","14":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","15":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","16":"tag-tampa-headlines","17":"tag-tampa-news","18":"tag-the-rays"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242600","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=242600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}