Mayor Rick Kriseman may be one step closer to getting his way when it comes to reaching a deal with the Tampa Bay Rays to let them start looking for stadium sites outside St. Pete.
The Tampa Bay Times is reporting that Kriseman will deliver results of his latest negotiations with the Major League Baseball team on Friday.
According to that report, Kriseman’s Chief of Staff, Kevin King, said the new agreement addresses concerns about development rights should the Rays break their contract to play ball in Tropicana Field through 2027.
The plan would allow the city to keep any proceeds from development on the Tropicana Field site beginning at such a point the Rays announce they will be moving somewhere else.
Under the current contract the team is entitled to 50 percent of development proceeds for development on the site. The previous Memorandum of Understanding did not address that provision.
St. Pete City Council member Karl Nurse brought it up in the December meeting as a concern. He said it didn’t seem fair to have to share revenue with the Rays if they were planning to break their contract.
Despite raising that objection, Nurse was one of three to vote in favor of the mayor’s agreement. Nurse said the announcement reiterates what he had already been told during a conversation with Kriseman a couple of weeks ago.
“He told me they wouldn’t be asking for redevelopment money if they moved,” Nurse said.
Though King told the Times the agreement would be sent to council to review on Friday he said the mayor is not yet ready to put it before the board for a vote.
Kriseman had previously said he was waiting to bring anything to council chambers until he was sure he had the support of at least five council members.
The five who voted against his first agreement were Wengay Newton, Amy Foster, Steve Kornell, Bill Dudley and Jim Kennedy.
Foster wouldn’t say whether the latest news would turn her no into a yes, but did say it was a step in the right direction.
“If the development rights issue is addressed it helps,” she said but noted she’s waiting to see something in writing before making any judgment.
“If there’s not a substantial increase to the amount of compensation to the city, I will still be a no,” Kornell said of the pending update. “I never said it was all based on just the development rights.”
To date, none of the five no-votes have indicated they would switch their vote.
The Tropicana Field site is estimated to be worth as much as $100 million if redeveloped. Nurse said he agrees with that figure.
Under the previous agreement the Rays would have had to pay the city a sliding annual fee for each year they played ball outside Tropicana Field for the duration of its contract. That would be $4 million through 2018, $3 million from 2019-2022 and then $2 million from 2023-2026. The total paid to the city was estimated to be about $20 million if they moved.
There’s no indication of whether or not those figures have changed.
