Prospective Rays Owner Must Start Fresh As $1.3B Stadium Deal Ends

Prospective Rays owner Patrick Zalupski, should he succeed in acquiring the MLB club from Stu Sternberg, will officially need to start over in developing a deal for a new venue. 

The city of St. Petersburg, Fla., formally terminated the deal to build a $1.3 billion ballpark and mixed-use development. The step was not a surprise given Sternberg walked away from the deal in March, citing increased costs he was not willing to bear alone. The unanimous approval of a termination agreement Thursday, however, means Zalupski and his partners would need to strike an entirely new pact, should they opt to remain in St. Petersburg long-term. As it is, some reports have suggested Zalupski prefers Hillsborough County, where the NFL’s Buccaneers and NHL’s Lightning play, as a future home for the team. 

The St. Petersburg deal termination—arriving just over one year from when the pact was approved—critically reverts land redevelopment rights from the Rays back to the city. 

“While the Rays’ decision is terribly disappointing, our mission was to adapt and refocus on our primary objective—the progress of our city,” said St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch. “The most important element of this is that the development rights of this area, previously held by the Rays since 1995, are now in the hands of the city. This puts us in the strongest position to assure that the future development of the Historic Gas Plant District meets the needs of St. Petersburg.”

Zalupski, meanwhile, has reached an agreement in principle on a $1.7 billion deal for the Rays, something MLB commissioner Rob Manfred briefly referenced last week at the league’s All-Star Game in Atlanta.

“I have no reason to quibble with or dispute the reports that have been out there,” he said.

A deal, however, won’t be too soon for some local officials.

“Cheap Stu. The Yankees and Phillies have spent millions of their own $ on their spring training stadiums in recent years, while Stu has to sit back and watch everyone else pay for his stadium,” said Pinellas County commissioner Chris Latvala, a frequent critic of Sternberg, in a social media post. “He can’t leave soon enough.”

Over at the Trop

St. Petersburg officials, meanwhile, are making more progress on repairing the hurricane-damaged, city-owned Tropicana Field so the Rays can return there next year. 

Already, preparations have begun to install new roof fabric to replace what was shredded last fall by Hurricane Milton, with that particularly visible part of the job scheduled to be done late this year. The city council, after legally ending the deal for the new stadium Thursday, also approved $5.2 million in electrical and lighting repairs for Tropicana Field. 

While the Rays are playing this year at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, the spring training home of the Yankees, the club intends to return to Tropicana Field next year, and confidence is growing both with MLB and the city that it will be achievable. 

The league plans to release the 2026 schedule next month, and that will give some further clues. An early-season slate that is front-loaded with away games would give crews more time to finish the work. The interim stay at the open-air Tampa stadium this year had the inverse situation, with the Rays playing a large chunk of home games in April and May to avoid the brunt of midsummer Florida heat.