Rays’ Tampa ballpark MOU shifts risk to team in $2.3B deal

A nonbinding memorandum would fund a new $2.3 billion Rays ballpark and mixed-use district, relying on specific tax streams and shifting cost-overrun risk to the team.

The Tampa Bay Rays’ long chase for a new home has reached a point local governments can no longer treat as theoretical, with a nonbinding memorandum of understanding laying out a path to a $2.3 billion ballpark and mixed-use development on the Dale Mabry campus of Hillsborough College.

This month. a framework agreement headed to Hillsborough County and the city of Tampa commits public funding up to $976 million toward the project.. Under the terms described in the memorandum. the county would provide $796 million and the city. together with its Community Redevelopment Agency. would contribute $180 million combined.. The Rays would cover the rest. about $1.27 billion or roughly 55% of the project cost based on the team’s own accounting. and. crucially. would absorb cost overruns.

That risk allocation is not buried in fine print.. Rays CEO Ken Babby has said ownership is prepared to put more than $1.1 billion into the development and take on the risk of going over budget. and the memorandum is designed to reflect that.. It states the team’s “Public Contribution Amount” cannot be reduced below the public figure. and that the Rays Stadium Entity “will be solely responsible” for the project. “including cost overruns.” The document also describes the deal as the largest private investment by a sports team in state history.

The team’s pitch is paired with a separate promise aimed at protecting public services.. In the memo accompanying the MOU. the Rays commit that “no public funding allocated for public infrastructure improvements or public safety within the region. including fire protection. law enforcement and emergency medical services. will be impacted” by the project.. The document stops short of making the protections self-executing. leaving the hard part—enforcement—still to be negotiated in final agreements.

As the public financing is broken down. the structure leans heavily on revenue streams that would be generated by tourism and new development. rather than broad-based general fund money.. The county’s $796 million package includes $360 million in community investment tax revenue and $263 million in tourist development tax (TDT) bonds backed by the bed tax on hotel stays.. It also includes a $40 million TDT reserve payment. $103 million from other county sources. and $30 million in federal disaster recovery funds for stormwater work.

Tampa’s city contribution is described as $80 million in CIT revenue.. The Community Redevelopment Agency would issue up to $100 million in tax-increment bonds backed by new property tax revenue generated by surrounding development itself.. The Rays note that this CRA component depends on a portion of new revenues from the mixed-use district rather than existing CRA funds. a distinction the team says matters for how the redevelopment area should perform.

The memorandum also ties the stadium plan to a broader political question facing local redevelopment: whether the mixed-use development actually delivers.. The Rays argue the project would lift “one of Tampa’s lowest-performing CRAs into one of its highest-performing.” The upside. in their telling. would flow back into a redevelopment area that has waited for a turnaround.

Bonding terms are described as engineered to reduce exposure for local budgets.. The memorandum says the bonds are structured to be nonrecourse to general funds and to the governments’ taxing authority. and that they are secured by specific revenue streams—bed taxes largely paid by tourists and growth in property tax that does not yet exist.. It further says the CRA bonds are taxable and privately placed. with institutional investors placing capital at risk based on the development’s success.

Additional protections are flagged, at least in concept.. The Rays say the use of Florida’s Live Local Act is prohibited in the mixed-use project. preserving full local land-use control.. The team would have to demonstrate financial capacity before any public money is released.. The bonds would also have to clear judicial validation before construction begins.. Longer-term commitments are addressed through agreements still to be negotiated. including an Owner Guaranty and Non-Relocation Agreements. intended to lock the team in for the initial 35-year use term. with five three-year extensions available.. The Rays describe the arrangement as a “35-year minimum commitment to Tampa Bay.”

Beyond the stadium itself. the memorandum presents a community-facing package framed as “the largest Community Benefits Agreement in City and County history. ” built around five pillars: workforce development. youth programming. community access. neighborhood enhancements. and direct investment.. The document also says the community will be allowed to weigh in on how the funds are invested. but the missing piece. according to the concerns raised in the discussion around the MOU. is whether those rights will be backed by specific dollar figures and concrete enforcement mechanisms once negotiations harden.

Not everyone is persuaded by the draft as presented.. Commissioner Joshua Wostal. in comments cited in connection with the proposal. pointed to the exposure created by bonding future community investment tax revenue if collections fall short.. He also raised concerns that reserve protections should be robust, particularly as Florida’s next hurricane bills arrive.. Wostal’s argument is that if the three-phase development does not occur. the property tax revenue the deal relies on will not materialize.. He said the project agreements should specify what the Rays owe taxpayers in that scenario. warning that a promise to develop is not the same as a guarantee to repay.

There are other areas described as needing tightening before anything becomes binding.. Dispute resolution language is characterized as too brief for a project of this scale. and a “Quality Standard” referenced throughout the document is not defined.. The memorandum also leaves the kinds of details that often determine whether litigation is avoidable—such as auditing rights and the specificity of performance standards—up to future negotiation.

That reality is central to how local officials appear to be reading the MOU itself. Council Chair Alan Clendenin described the document as “on the squishy side,” characterizing it as a letter of intent meant to push the parties toward an endpoint rather than serve as the final contract.

Still, the memorandum is not portrayed as a blank check.. Babby’s pledge that the team would protect “all public funding currently allocated for police. fire. emergency management or response functions. or other previously committed public safety or service priorities” is presented as the right direction. with the expectation that final agreements will make those assurances enforceable.

The timetable adds pressure.. The opening targeted for 2029. according to the discussion around the plan. depends on moving quickly enough to allow bond validation. redevelopment plan amendments. CIT list revisions. and the college land transfer to proceed in sequence.. There is also the political reality that the Rays’ relocation threats have hung over the region for two decades. and local leaders are not likely to get many chances to reset the terms.

Gov.. Ron DeSantis has warned that Orlando is ready to pursue the team. and Senate Appropriations Chair Ed Hooper has urged locals to figure it out first.. That puts the onus on Hillsborough County and Tampa to translate the memorandum’s risk-shifting language and community promises into agreements with the kind of specificity that can survive stress. delay. and disputes.

The MOU may not be the deal itself. but it lays down the framework for negotiation—and. notably. for where the financial and operational risk would land.. The path forward now runs through line-by-line bargaining over enforceability. accounting transparency. and contingency protections before anything is signed into permanence. with Major League Baseball watching how Tampa Bay handles its next step.

Tampa Bay Rays Hillsborough County Tampa city council ballpark financing Community Redevelopment Agency MLB stadium deal CIT and TDT bonds