Tampa Bay mayors excited about housing, development, Rays deal in 2024

ST. PETERSBURG — Each of Tampa Bay’s biggest cities has big items on their to-do lists: A pledge to create 10,000 affordable homes in Tampa, a sweeping Major League Baseball stadium in St. Petersburg and redevelopment of a baseball spring training complex in Clearwater.

The mayors of each city gathered Thursday night at Suncoast Tiger Bay’s annual State of the Bay to say they are making progress on those and other initiatives, even if they’re proceeding quietly.

“At the local level, we don’t have a lot of the drama that you see at perhaps the state and the federal level,” said St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch in a meeting room at The Vinoy Resort & Golf Club.

The first question of the night from club members was for Tampa Mayor Jane Castor. She was asked about a Tampa Bay Times story that detailed how the administration was falling short of a goal to add 10,000 affordable homes by 2027 despite her assertions that the city is ahead of schedule.

”We work every day, hard every day, to ensure that individuals have a roof over their head,” Castor said at the event.

Welch added that government alone cannot solve the problem as he stated his own goal of preserving and creating 8,000 affordable housing units by 2030.

He was asked about why the public should support the redevelopment of Tropicana Field into the Historic Gas Plant District. The project would include a new $1.3 billion stadium half subsidized with public dollars and would involve selling 60 publicly owned acres to the Rays for redevelopment at a significant discount. Welch said the project is “different from any other stadium deal in the country,” with opportunity for economic advancement and inclusion for working-class and minority residents.

He said he had the singular perspective of growing up in that area and seeing what was lost when the original Gas Plant district was razed in the name of addressing blight.

“I’m very hopeful the City Council will approve the agreements that we’ll bring forward to them,” he said to applause.

Castor was then asked if she saw any pitfalls with St. Petersburg’s stadium deal and, if things were to take a turn for the worst, whether Tampa would still be on the table as a potential site for the Rays.

“There’s no reason to think it’s going to go south,” she said. “This is a wonderful win for our region. And it’s going to be a spectacular project when it’s finished.”

Clearwater Mayor Brian Aungst Sr. announced Thursday that, while the Philadelphia Phillies have not yet unveiled their long-awaited proposal for an overhaul of Clearwater’s BayCare Ballpark and training complex, the initial phase will be a scaled-down version of what was previously discussed with city officials.

Last June, after a briefing with team leaders, Aungst told the Times that the Phillies were planning a $570 million complex that would change how fans and players experience the sport while boosting tourism in the county. He said it included a $250 million residential, dining and shopping complex called Ballpark Village on 13 acres that the team has purchased just south of the stadium at the corner of Drew Street and U.S. 19.

That would be in addition to what Aungst described as a $320 million overhaul of the stadium and training complex to build state-of-the-art player development facilities and fan experiences. This portion would come with a request for funding from the city and Pinellas County.

But during the forum, Aungst said the team will no longer be advancing the $570 million project all at once. ”That is on hold right now,” he said.

Due to changes in Phillies’ ownership, Aungst said the team plans to submit a “$60 to $65 million initial project and then maybe phasing the larger project in over a period of three to eight years, depending.”

In an interview after the forum, Aungst said the roughly $65 million proposal will focus mainly on the stadium. He did not know how much the team will ask the city and county to contribute or when it will submit its application for public money. He said the Phillies are still planning to fund the retail, shopping and residential portion “but they want to do it sequentially.”

In response to questions from the Times about Aungst’s comments, Phillies vice president of communications Bonnie Clark said: “We are exploring various renovation and development alternatives so it is premature to discuss any specifics at this time.”

Staff writers Olivia George and Tracey McManus contributed to this report.