McEwen in favor of downtown Tampa stadium for Rays

Posted Jun 24, 2010 by Tom McEwen

Updated Jun 24, 2010 at 08:25 PM

I had a conversation with Frank Morsani a few days ago and we both said the same thing, we have gone full circle.  And we have. 

Years ago, I went with Morsani to Texas where Major League Baseball was meeting to talk expansion. My recollection is that ex-president George W. Bush was there on behalf of Texas.  He and Texas wanted a major-league franchise, as did Morsani and Florida. Both were awarded. The Texas result became the Rangers of today and the Florida result became the Tampa Bay Rays, though not immediately.

Morsani in our conversation said this was a repeat of those days.

“I remember we came back and in time, the Florida award of a franchise became the team of Vince Naimoli, who later sold it, and it is now owned by Stuart Sternberg, with the Rays now operating out of the Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, not considered an ideal baseball facility.  He would like to move it.

“In the beginning, I remember none of us involved believed that Tropicana was the ideal place for the baseball home, but someplace on the Tampa side of the Bay was, with downtown Tampa the most likely place,”  Morsani said. “Nothing has changed, has it?”

To which I replied, it has not changed. The Rays are still at Tropicana, but uncomfortable there.  Sternberg and others believe the Rays would prosper in Hillsborough County.  At least two other groups are talking about trying to move the team to downtown Tampa, near the Port of Tampa, near the St. Pete Times Forum, near the interchange of I-4 and I-75.  Hillsborough County Commission Chairman Ken Hagan, who has emerged as a political leader, likes that idea, too. A drive through that area recently by those close to the proposition affirmed the site as a likely one. Ryan Neubauer, of the BuildItDowntownTampa group, likes the idea of that area, as does David LeFevre, former Lightning executive. Former Tampa Mayor Dick Greco has an investment group that is inquiring about the Florida State Fairgrounds site as a possibility for the new stadium.

Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, like most of us, has no interest in financing a new baseball stadium for anyone with public money, or through a referendum. That is why any kind of a baseball stadium in Tampa will have to be financed by those who want to build it and put their team in it. The interest in such projects with public money seems to have dissipated.

However, most of us would like to see a new baseball facility in downtown Tampa, near the Port, but built by the potential owners of that stadium. No one in Tampa or St. Petersburg wants to see such a facility built with tax money in these days of this poor economy.

But, commendations should go to Greco, Hagan, Iorio, LeFevre, Neubauer, Tampa Bay Partnership Chairman Stuart Rogel, St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster, Tampa Bay and Company CEO Paul Catoe and all of the others pushing for the baseball stadium wherever it can be built, though downtown Tampa is preferred here, in order to establish that Tampa continues to be on the move.  A U.S. Census Bureau report released this week showed that Tampa is one of only two big cities in the state of Florida still growing, if not by much.

The purpose of this commentary today is simply to encourage the push for a new facility to accommodate Sternberg and the Rays in finding a new, more suitable home than Tropicana Field, preferably, to our way of thinking in downtown Tampa. With county commissioner Hagan in the forefront and with all of us thanking the late Chuck Rainey, a Pinellas activitist all of his life, for his forward thinking for St. Pete and Tampa Bay.