{"id":351505,"date":"2026-07-24T20:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T20:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/351505\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T20:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T20:19:09","slug":"tampa-city-council-delays-tampa-bay-rays-ballpark-vote-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/351505\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa City Council delays Tampa Bay Rays ballpark vote again"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tampa City Council, convened as the city\u2019s Community Redevelopment Agency board, on Thursday \u201conce again delayed its next scheduled vote\u201d on the Rays\u2019 proposed ballpark<\/a>, according to Emma Behrmann of the TAMPA BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL. The first delay in June<\/a> pushed the discussion on $100M in stadium funding from the Drew Park Community Redevelopment Area to Aug. 20. Now, most recently, the board \u201cvoted to remove the discussion on the Rays\u2019 non-binding deal framework from the August agenda.\u201d The delay comes as the Rays are \u201cweighing the extent of the city\u2019s involvement in the deal<\/a>.\u201d City Council member Bill Carlson said that the Rays have \u201cnot sufficiently included the CRA board in their negotiations.\u201d Fellow council member Lynn Hurtak, who has publicly opposed the deal and seconded Carlson\u2019s motion, also \u201cexpressed concern over not being consulted.\u201d Rays CEO Ken Babby on Thursday said that the team is \u201cconsidering a route that doesn\u2019t include the CRA.\u201d Behrmann noted one possibility to circumvent the CRA is to \u201ccreate a county-controlled Tax Increment Financing district\u201d to cover the $100M contribution. Hurtak noted that the Rays \u201chave mentioned\u201d that idea. The Rays \u201cmaintain confidence\u201d in their 2029 deadline and are \u201cpushing for an August vote for\u202fconstruction to begin in September\u201d (TAMPA BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL, 7\/23<\/a>).<\/p>\n

NO GOODWILL: In Tampa, John Romano wrote the plan \u201cmay not be foolproof, but it appears to be a subtle workaround to avoid skeptical council members.\u201d And, judging from a pair of council votes on Thursday, that \u201cmight be the Rays\u2019 wisest route.\u201d Romano wrote there \u201cdoesn\u2019t seem to be a lot of goodwill between the two sides at the moment\u201d (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 7\/23<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tampa City Council, convened as the city\u2019s Community Redevelopment Agency board, on Thursday \u201conce again delayed its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3816,3986,3817,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-351505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-baseball","tag-legal","tag-mlb","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351505","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=351505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}