Call to Action – Public Comment on the Tampa Bay Rays Stadium Deal

The Tampa Bay Times is soliciting public input. Let them know what you think!

Also email a copy of your comment to the City and ask that it be added to the public record and shared with City Councilmembers.

Send to : Veronika.Slep@stpete.org and Brian.Caper@stpete.org and bcc: office@lwvspa.org.

Here are some messages members can cut and paste. (All of these meet the word count limitation for TBT. These can be expanded for letters to Councilmembers)

1. The total estimated cost to taxpayers is $1.6 billion over 30 years. Taxpayers are getting very little in guaranteed benefits in return while the Rays Team Owners get exclusive rights to develop 60 acres of prime real estate and exclusive use of a new stadium. I am opposed to this use of taxpayer funds with no return on our investment.
2. According to the City, over $700 Million of property taxes will be siphoned from the downtown and midtown property taxes to pay stadium debt service over 30 years. Taxpayers will have to fill that hole to pay for required public services.  I am opposed to the use of Taxpayer Increment Funds to pay for a stadium that the owners and County bed tax can afford to build.
3. The Rays Team Owners, according to the term sheet, must build only 1,200 units of below market rent housing.  This is far below offeres from other proposers. Worse, the Rays Team Owners can get out of building any of this housing by paying a small penalty.  Our City is in desperate need of affordable housing and giving the Rays Team Owners a pass is unacceptable.
4. The Rays Team Owner’s drawing s of the gas plant property show the Booker Music Hall, but there is no obligation to build this Hall. Likewise is shown the Woodson African Americian Museum which the Rays do not have to build.  The Rays keep the land whether they build a music hall or not. I’m opposed to this deal which sells a $700 million property for $100 million, and allows the Rays Team Owners to build what is most profitable for them.
5. The Atlanta Braves stadium/mixed use development is the Rays Team Owners model for the St. Petersburg project.  Atlanta Braves earn $50 million/year from the development and it increases 10%/year. St. Petersburg will earn nothing from the gas plant development. Atlanta Braves pay $3 million/year to Cobb County in lieu of property taxes. St. Petersburg will get no such payment. Economists (Bradbury, et al) have studied the Atlanta Braves deal and found that is was a bad investment for Cobb County. St. Petersburg should not repeat that mistake.
6. The City appraised the gas plant property based on industrial land for $286 million. After that appraisal the land was upzoned and the City pledged $130 million in infrastructure payments. Two recent land sales in the same vicinity show that the actkual value of the gas plant property with the City improvements is about $700 millioin. They Rays Team Owners are paying $109 million. The Rays only pay for the land over 20 years as parcels are subdivided and flipped. I object to the low sale price and the Rays Team Owners keeping the escalated value of the land. This is a very bad deal for taxpayers.
7. According to the City’s stormwater plan website, taxpayers are being asked to “chip in” to pay for a backlog of water, wastewater and stormwater projects at the same time that the City is giving away valuable publicly owned land and paying $22 million/year in stadium bonds debt service. City residents don’t want to “chip in” when their money is being given to billionaires.  Let them build their own [damn] stadium.
8. The City’s Community Benefit Ordinance requires a payment from the developer for any project with City investment. The ordinance states that the payment should be an amount sufficient to reflect the taxpayer’s investment. The Rays Team Owners have offered $50 million payment spread out over 20 years.  This is an inadequate return on taxpayer investment of $1.6 billion. Worse, the payment was deducted from the Rays Team Owners’ land price, so the money is  coming from the taxpayers directly. The community benefit should be same as the Rays Team Owner’s return on investment, which according to the RTO’s model, the Atlanta Braves, is $50 million/year.
9. I support the construction of the Carter Woodson African American Museum.  It will attract tourists and bring prominence to our City.  Economists agree that if our City wants to sponsor a museum, it should provide funds directly, not run money through a stadium project. I support $30 million bond to pay for the CWAAM instead of $700 million in bonds for a baseball stadium. 
10. The taxpayer investment in the Rays Team Owners stadium project is justified by the Victus Advisor report.  There are several problems with this report. First, the multiplier effect model is discredited by 85% of economists. Second, a study of the projected multiplier effect on sales taxes from the Cobb County stadium show that actual results fell short of projections. Third, the Victus Advisor report assumes that the stadium will be at capacity (30,000 attendees) and that there will be at least 30 non-stadium events/year. However, the Rays Team Owners are not guaranteeing any of these outcomes.  The Rays have the third worse attendance in the League, even in 2023 a winning year. The Victus Advisor Report states that the “honeymoon effect” of a new stadium will be over in 5 years after opening. The Rays Team Owners must make up loss revenue to the City and County if they want taxpayers to invest in this deal, otherwise I am opposed to any expenditure of taxpayer money.
11. The County projections of the “bed tax” over 40 years shows that the revenues are more than adequate to pay a larger share of the stadium cost. If the justification for building a new stadium is to attract tourists, and the “bed tax” is generating excess revenues, the “bed tax” should pay a larger share of the stadium cost instead of St. Petersburg taxpayers. I am opposed to City taxpayers paying for a stadium when the “bed tax” has excess revenues.