All in all, for the ballpark project to be completed, the city of Tampa is contributing roughly $80 million in public funding, and the county of Hillsborough will contribute almost $800 million. The remaining $1.4 billion or so and any cost overruns will be privately financed. The new complex will be located near Hillsborough College's Dale Mabry campus. All of this is happening after votes passed in the city of Tampa on Friday. Also, per the agreement, this new ballpark, whatever name its going to be, will be owned by the county, with the Rays paying $4 million a year in rent. The lease on the ballpark is expected to run for 35 years.
Anybody in the Tampa area can tell you this has been going on for almost twenty years. Ever since Stu Sternberg took over ownership of the team, the Rays have been trying to replace the Trop as their home. A lot of the holdups have been, if we really being honest, is because nobody wanted to deal with Stu. That's at least the prevailing theory around the baseball world and the Tampa area as to why it took this long to get everything done. Once the new ownership took over, everything got done and we have the new ballpark.
As I said on the last episode of the show, I'm still a little hesitant about this just because, given what has happened with the Rays history, something could still always pop up to delay this process. I'm always nervous that something could still go wrong. Once the shovels actually go into the ground and things start getting done, I'll feel a lot better about this. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy that this is getting moving in the right direction and its moving, but I'll be a lot happier once shovel hits ground and everything starts going up in the next few months.
For now at least, the city of Tampa can rejoice that the new ballpark is coming!
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