SEE ALSO: Previous stories on Tampa Bay Rays stadium<\/a><\/p>\nThe Rays had given both the county and the city of Tampa an ultimatum to approve funding by June 1.<\/p>\n
The comments come from a preliminary feedback memo released by the county attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
The county\u2019s memo states discussions would likely take at least another 60 to 90 days to work out the specifics after reaching a preliminary deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce the parties reach an agreement on the MOU, certain project agreements could be prioritized over others to help move the project forward. It would likely take at least 60-90 days to negotiate the Development and Funding Agreement (and possibly the Use Agreement) following the approval of the MOU,\u201d the county\u2019s memo states.<\/p>\n
It is unclear if the Rays and the county will be able to solve this timeline dispute.<\/p>\n
The Tampa Bay Rays have released this statement on the situation:<\/p>\n
We are working diligently on the list of questions provided to us by the county and city and will share our responses with them soon. With the right public-private partnership, we can build a world-class ballpark by 2029 and remain focused on doing so.<\/p>\n
View the full Hillsborough County memo to the Rays below:<\/p>\n
&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;nbsp;<\/p>\n
The Rays\u2019 proposal released earlier this month calls for the Rays to fund 50% of the project, including any cost overruns. The city of Tampa would contribute $251 million, while Hillsborough County would contribute $750 million.<\/p>\n
Ahead of a public workshop earlier this month, Rays CEO Ken Babby sent a letter to commissioners reiterating that the deadline is imperative to keep the deal economically feasible and to meet the 2029 opening day timeline.<\/p>\n
\u201cShould this commitment ultimately not be achievable, we would have no choice but to evaluate alternatives; however, that is not our desired outcome. Time and action are of the essence,\u201d Babby wrote in his letter to commissioners.<\/p>\n
Some commissioners remain hesitant to sign off on a new ballpark just yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom my perspective, I\u2019d love to be able to vote yes on this,\u201d Commissioner Harry Cohen said at a workshop last week. \u201cBut to vote yes, I have to be convinced this is the right thing for the community and for the taxpayers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla.\u00a0\u2014 Hillsborough County officials say they will likely not meet the Tampa Bay Rays\u2019 deadline of approving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1242,1238,28,2161,276,2287,115,139,29645,29208,275,110,1237,135,3815,137,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-244452","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-app-professional-sports","9":"tag-app-sports","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-government","12":"tag-hillsborough-county","13":"tag-local-politics","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-orlando","16":"tag-professional-baseball","17":"tag-rays-stadium","18":"tag-spectrum-news-staff","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-sports-news","21":"tag-tampa","22":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","23":"tag-tampa-headlines","24":"tag-tampa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244452","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=244452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}