Yesterday evening the Ken Babby, Rays CEO, presented the Rays stadium/entertainment district plans at a Tampa City Council workshop. Workshops, you may recall from earlier reporting on the Hillsborough County Commission, are not decision-making sessions; no votes are taken. They are opportunities for elected officials, who thanks to Sunshine Laws can only meet in public, to gather information on a complex topic.
The Rays financial ask of the city is only much less than that from the county (approx. $750M to $250M), but the city has a smaller budget and fewer available revenue sources, so the significance of the the city’s contribution is still significant. Of the revenue sources under discussion for the public contribution, both the Community Investment Tax (CIT) and the Drew Park Community Redevelopment Area funding (CRA) are partly or largely under the city’s control.
Yesterday the Council heard from Ken Babby, from City of Tampa staff, from other so-called “stakeholders” — groups that might have some involvement in planning and building the stadium area. These included the state transportation department (FDOT), the police and fire fighters’ unions, and Hillsborough College, whose president spoke at length about the benefits (internships, partnerships, campus improvements) he anticipated as a partner in the Rays redevelopment plans.
I’m not going to try to cover the entire meeting here — For a more comprehensive overview of the workshop, you can read the Tampa Bay Times coverage — rather, I think it’s fitting to highlight a few points that arose largely through the questions from council members. Accordingly, I’ll highlight the five points that are the most significant and yet unresolved problem areas.
