What if the Rays left town?
May 27, 2008 at 10:00 am by Wayne Garcia
The St. Pete Times editorial pages this Sunday asked that very question, in a way that tips their hand in supporting a new ballpark for the team, a $450 million taxpayer-subsidized waterfront facility:
The loss of team and stadium jobs and the loss of 81 game days and the corresponding hotel and restaurant use can be computed into fairly reliable economic numbers. What is much harder to measure is the extent to which the team is a factor in other business decisions that affect St. Petersburg and Pinellas and in the overall quality life of the entire area. The viability of existing and new hotels would most certainly be affected. But could the loss of the team lead to lost opportunities in business relocations? Could it shake the faith of banks that provide the capital for corporate growth?
So I ask the question that the Times does: What would happen if the Rays left town?
Let’s examine the team’s impact so far, or in other words, what will we get for the $323 million that the Trop and the team will cost us through 2016. The Times editorial begins this way:
A Major League Baseball team, one former St. Petersburg official said nearly two decades ago, would “light the tail on the rocket.”
The newspaper says determining the team’s role in St. Pete’s current state is less relevant than looking forward. But seriously, the team’s impact in our region was oversold from day one and remains overstated. It did not light the tail on the rocket; it didn’t put St. Pete on the map (much to the chagrin of city leaders, the team retains its geographic name as “Tampa Bay” and some broadcasters shorten it to Tampa); its impact on the larger region is even more dubious. It did not create an economic ripple in Downtown West; the few sports bars that were opened as a result, most notably Ferg’s, are lonely outposts for the most part in the immediate neighborhood.
So if the past is any indicator of the future, baseball is not going to “transform” St. Pete into America’s Next Great City.
The team has never directly threatened to leave, but the message has been delivered by two proxies: business leader Steve Raymund and Times sports columnist John Romano, the latter’s none-too-subtle channeling for the Rays ownership headlined “Rays will get their new stadium — somewhere.”
Since the Times has asked, here’s one scenario of what happens if the team leaves:
- The city would give the Rays leave to, well, leave. The lease on Tropicana Field runs through 2027, but the city could let the team off the hook and allow them to move. It could do that asap.
- The city of St. Petersburg would then save as much as $2 million a year in operating subsidies, since you could basically mothball the Trop. Right now, the city is on the hook for any operating deficits at the stadium. That is money that could be used for city services downtown, freeing other monies for use throughout the city.
- The city could continue its RFP process to sell the 85-acre Trop site, garnering an estimated $60 million-$70 million. Instead of being used to buy a new stadium, as in the current Rays proposal, the city could use that cash to fund new city facilities and programs, or to restore programs cut in this year’s tax reform crunch, or to seed economic development, or to provide a tax and regulatory break for small businesses to thrive and add jobs, or for a property tax cut for its residents.
- The redeveloped Trop site would go onto the tax rolls and provide more money for city services and programs — or even property tax cuts.
- The relocated Dali Museum and renoved Mahaffey Theater would have the opportunity to thrive that they won’t have if a ballpark gobbles up their audiences and parking. Who’s going to visit the Dali, for instance, on the night of a ballgame with all that traffic and lack of parking?
- Downtown’s “renaissance,” as the Times editorial, would have the opportunity to continue to grow organically, allowing for unique restaurants, bars, art galleries and other businesses that could be priced and squeezed out of a Rays-waterfront-ballpark downtown.
In this scenario, the city grows its own longlasting jobs, not just the 18-month construction job benefit the Rays tout. In this scenario, downtown St. Pete continues to be an eclectic affordable destination for dining, entertaining and the arts, something that downtown Tampa can’t claim. And the city gets a veritable windfall by cutting the team — and its subsidies — loose. St. Pete and Pinellas County would have to continue to pay off the bonds that were used to build the Trop through 2016, but it already has that burden and can’t do anything about it.
Bonus cuts: The Rays and the city’s secrecy; our Q&A with the Rays’ Silverman and Kalt; PoHo blog on the Trop redevelopment plans; download the Rays’ financial proposal and analysis.
(photo by Ben Ostrowsky)
