The negotiations to entice the Tampa Bay Rays to a new stadium near Ybor City are still ongoing but now are being conducted by the Tampa Sports Authority behind closed doors and beyond public scrutiny.
This writer wants to know....what is more disturbing, the look of the new proposed Tampa Bay Rays stadium (pictured above) or the hundreds of baseball fans, having no concept of the cultural beauty of Historic Ybor, who will be invading 7th Avenue several nights a week during the baseball season?
In 2018 we came razor close to closing a deal with the Tampa Bay Rays to move to Ybor City but a concerted public pushback convinced the Hillsborough County Commission to nix the deal.
Now we are again faced with the looming prospect of the monster called Raybor reappearing in the neighborhood. Will we again see RAYBOR banners hanging from the 2nd floor balconies of Historic Ybor buildings? One of the more prominent real estate developers in Tampa, Darryl Shaw, is gobbling up properties, including the site of the proposed stadium, in and around Ybor City with the clear intent of gentrifying the neighborhood and a major league baseball stadium would be a glaring benchmark of this gentrification.
This stadium would cost over $1 billion and a large portion, perhaps half, of that would be funded by public funds, primarily the county bed tax. This is money that should be earmarked for the benefit of the local economy and not a cashcow for wealthy property owners and investors in the Tampa Bay Rays franchise.
Numerous academic studies conclude that major sports stadiums are of little or no benefit to the local economies where they are built. In fact, money spent at sports stadiums that would often be spent in local entertainment establishments ends up instead in the hands of land owners, investors, athletes and other sports personnel, where it has no impact on the local economy at all.
I only hope that I, and others, have the energy to fight another round against Raybor.
