New Rays stadium advances after Hillsborough approves $796M in funding

Hillsborough County commissioners agreed Friday to provide $796 million in funding for a new Tampa Bay Ray ballpark, clearing the way for work to start after a 20-year effort to replace Tropicana Field.

While there are procedural steps remaining, as would be expected in a deal this complex, the county agreeing to the funding was the final piece needed to move the project forward.

The commission voted 5-2 with Ken Hagen, Harry Cohen, Gwen Myers, Christine Miller and Chris Boles in favor of the proposal. Joshua Wostal and Donna Cameron Cepeda voted against it.

The county’s vote followed Tampa’s city council approving $80 million of its own money for the stadium Thursday.

The Rays’ stadium plan calls for spending $2.3 billion to build a 28,000-seat ballpark on the site of Hillsborough College’s Dale Mabry campus across from Raymond James stadium. The team has committed to put $1.3 million of its own money into the stadium and absorb any cost overruns.

The team, as part of the deal, has committed to play at the stadium for 35 years, with five three-year extension options, and to pay $4 million a year in rent. There is also a non-relocation agreement.

The plan also calls for the eventual construction of multi-use development to include hospitality, retail and dining options as well as a new campus, on the property, for Hillsborough College that will be paid for with $180 million in state money.

The county will own the stadium and the land beneath it. It will also be a part of a Community Development District created to fund infrastructure improvements funded through property tax revenue.

(The land is currently owned by the college and not subject to property taxes.)

According to a summary of the agreement, $360 million of Hillsborough’s portion of the money will come from community investment tax funds; $303 million from tourist development taxes; $103 million from cash reserves; and $30 million from federal community development block grant disaster recovery funds.

The money would be paid out over four fiscal years.

The agreement brings to an end a 20-year effort to get the team a new ballpark that began with the Rays previous ownership.

In 2018 it announced a plans for an $892 million-dollar stadium in Ybor City. That was followed in 2022 by a plan for the team to play half its games in Tampa or St. Petersburg and half in Montreal. A new stadium would have been built in each city and the Rays would have alternated cities each year for the playoffs.

Then, about a year later, then-Tampa Bay Rays owner Stuart Sternberg and St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch announced a deal for a new $1.3 billion ballpark in the city on the site of Tropicana Field. It was tied to the $6.5 billion redevelopment of the Historic Gas Plant District.

But in March 2025, after winning city and Pinellas County approvals for the funding, Sternberg announced that the team was backing put because of the cost of building the stadium was getting too high for the team to meet its share — $600 million plus the cost overruns.

The new ownership group, which bought the team later in the year, committed from the first day to build a new ballpark for the team that would open in time for the 2029 season in Tampa.

“On behalf of our partners, I want to express our deepest gratitude to Hillsborough County and the City of Tampa for their leadership, partnership, and willingness to say yes to what for so long had been considered impossible: a new ballpark for the Tampa Bay Rays," Patrick Zalupski, the team's managing partner and co-chair, said in statement following the county's vote.

 "This has been a long and challenging process, and we know that transformational projects rarely come easily. Today’s vote represents an extraordinary milestone — not simply for the Rays or for a ballpark, but for the future of Tampa and the entire Tampa Bay region."