St. Petersburg’s stadium appears to be unusable right now.
In the overall scope of society, sports is a minor player. It’s entertainment for some, an obsession for gamblers and for politicians who approve public spending for a venue, an arena or a stadium that could looked upon as an economic generator. There are far more important things in St. Petersburg and Pinellas County, Florida to think about as people throughout Florida begin the process of rebuilding their lives. But there is a business aspect that Major League Baseball is facing. The St. Petersburg stadium that houses the Tampa Bay Rays franchise is terribly damaged with the paneling on the stadium roof blown off by Hurricane Milton. The stadium’s life was coming to an end as St. Petersburg and Pinellas County politicians came up with a deal with the Tampa Bay Rays’ ownership and a private company to build a stadium-village on the land that presently houses the St. Petersburg stadium.
There is a major public component in the funding of the St. Petersburg stadium-village concept, hundreds of millions of dollars, has been earmarked for the project. The new stadium is scheduled to open in 2028. There is a major catch to the Pinellas County funding. The money for the stadium is supposed to come from a county bed tax, meaning that money comes from tourists using the county beaches and other county offerings. St. Petersburg is not the only MLB problem area. There are spring training facilities in Dunedin, in Tampa, in Lakeland, in Sarasota, in Bradenton, in North Port, in Fort Myers and in Port Charlotte. In September, 2022, Hurricane Ian damaged the Minnesota Twins’ spring training complex but repairs were made to the complex and were completed by spring training’s 2023 start but the Tampa Bay Rays’ Port Charlotte complex was badly damaged and not repaired until 2024. MLB has a hurricane recovery problem.
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Outside the stadium/
