Are the Rays getting a new stadium

With the Rays in the World Series last years and a new mayor in town new stadium talks are coming back to life. The Rays still have interest in the team, but now that they have ben in the World Series they have proven that they are for real. The new stadium is on people’s minds. Neither the local governments nor the Rays have begun to act.

New Mayor Bill Foster wants to talk to Rays about a new stadium somewhere in the future. He wants to negotiate when they would get this stadium. He also wants to negotiate the concept of having the Rays pay for some of the stadium themselves, or even paying for the whole like the Yankees did for their brand new stadium that opened this season.

People still talking about the prospect of a new stadium but are questioning the intelligence of building an open-air arena in the lightning capital of the world. “It rains here every day during the summer “said Travis Martin. “It is really stupid” said Angela Kurtz. “An open air is a questionable idea especially since summer temperatures are over 90 degrees and it rains here every day. One of the reasons people don’t go see the Marlins is because it too dam hot and now they want an open air stadium here”? Travis said.

Some people liked the idea of a retractable roof. Heather Davis said “a retractable roof like Rogers Centre in Toronto or Safeco Field in Seattle might be nice.”

People did not want the new stadium a year or two ago when it was first proposed because The Rays had been stinking up the game of baseball since that started playing in 1998. Now a year and a shot at the title make all the difference in the world.

The new Stadium will be in Downtown St. Petersburg. This stadium is only blocks from the St. Petersburg campus of USF. Steve Johnson said "The traffic is going to be horrible coming in and out of downtown. The noise is going to make it much hard to hear teachers and videos in class." Ryan Levin said. "Parking is going to be a nightmare. People will probably try to use our student parking on game day." The noise and the detours are going to cause huge problems for USF students.

Kent Mattingly, spokesperson for the campus police, said that they do not have a plan yet to protect student parking. Mattingly also said that the St. Petersburg Police will help the campus police with security in the area.

Ryan Levin continues “The people of this town always wanted the Rays to succeed; they just didn’t expect the lowest payroll in the league to make the World Series. Now that they’re winners, the people want to thank them with a stadium fitting a major league baseball team”. When asked if he was worried that the team was a fluke, he said “no I’m not worried, there is no way this is a one and done team. There is too much talent. There are now three powers in the East. It is fitting to be talking about a new stadium for the Rays since the power up in the Bronx is opening a new Yankee Stadium. That means that if this new stadium plan goes through, 2 of the 3 powers in the Eastern Division will have a new stadium”.

The new stadium is expected to cost around 450 million dollars. The original plan was for the Rays to put up 150 million and the rest would come from the State, City and County. Governor Charley Christ has already said that the state will not help finance the new stadium. The city and the county have not said how much of the total cost they are willing to pick up. To make a stadium a dome, an average cost of about 200 million dollars will have to be added. The problem is always money. The pencil pushers are having trouble coming up with 450 million dollars let alone another 200 million to make Ray’s stadium a dome. Corporate sponsorship usually solves this problem. Companies love to write a large check to see their logo on the face of a large complex. Current economic times will probably prevent someone from stepping forward.

The man-in-the-street is again enthused about a shiny new ballpark, now we just have to see what the local Governments and the Rays are going to do.