Luke Stedrak’s Comments on New Baseball Stadium in St. Petersburg

Luke Stedrak, a professor at Southeastern Louisiana University, believes the Tampa Bay Rays’ new baseball stadium proposal in St. Petersburg will be a win-win for the team, the league, the city, and the community at large.

St. Petersburg, FL - September 28, 2023 /MarketersMEDIA/ —

After years of trepidation about where Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays would call home for the long term, an agreement was recently announced that will see the professional ballclub remain in the Tampa-St. Petersburg region for years to come. Luke Stedrak, an associate professor of educational leadership at Southeastern Louisiana University, said the new deal looks to be a huge win not just for the Rays but for the surrounding community as well.

In mid-September, team officials announced a deal that will see the Rays build a new domed baseball stadium that will seat 30,000 people close to where their current home, Tropicana Field, is located in St. Petersburg. 

The new stadium will be a part of a larger redevelopment project of the city’s historic 86-acre Gas Plant District. Luke Stedrak says that the plan still needs to be approved by the public, but if it passes as it’s expected to later this year, construction could begin late next year and be ready for the start of the Rays’ 2028 season.

The total cost of the project is expected to be roughly $1.3 billion, with the team paying at least half of that total. The rest would be covered by St. Petersburg and Pinellas County through bonds, a hotel bed tax, and a tourist development tax.

“There is generally some level of uncertainty when financing a stadium.” Luke Stedrak said. “It has taken over a decade and finally looks to be a true partnership between the team and the community.”  

Ken Welch, the mayor of St. Petersburg, said at a press conference announcing the stadium deal that the project will meet the “collective community needs.” He further said that it will honor the residents of the Gas Plant District who were forced off their land back in the 1980s so that Tropicana Field could be built.

Luke Stedrak says that the new Tampa Bay Rays home is more than just a stadium construction project. It’s a larger redevelopment project that will create additional affordable housing units as well as a lot of jobs. In fact, Janet Long, the chair of the Pinellas County Commission, estimated that the current proposal would create 15,000 annual jobs for the region.

Under the current proposal, between 15 and 20 acres of the project would be owned by the county. The stadium and two different parking garages would be part of that land, which would then be subleased by the city back to the Tampa Bay Rays. 

The team said the lease agreement would initially be for 30 years, with the option to extend that agreement to 40 years.

Luke Stedrak says that the Tampa Bay Rays’ new stadium proposal looks to be a project that everyone in the community can be proud of and will benefit from.

About Luke Stedrak

Dr. Luke Stedrak, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at Southeastern Louisiana University, is renowned for K-12 school finance research, emphasizing constitutional rights in public schools. Stedrak’s impactful work features in outlets such as The Wall Street Journal. He’s earned the National Education Finance Academy Fellowship for distinguished research and is on the Education Law Association’s Board of Directors.

Contact Info:
Name: Luke Stedrak
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Organization: Luke Stedrak
Website: https://lukestedrak.com/

Release ID: 89108749

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