The place they have now is downright hideous and depressing. It's also in a bad location. In no way does Tropicana Field do anything to inspire or promote baseball in that city. When my Indians play the Rays on the road, I cringe at the sight of the field.
Now this new, open air, unique, on-the-water facility would do wonders at attracting an audience and a consistent crowd. Plus, the article states the plan for funding doesn't even involve the locals to pay for anything through taxes. Instead, the majority of money will come through the sale of the land and parking lot of the Tropicana Field site.
IMO, it's a win-win for the city of St. Pete, the MLB and should be a jolt to an organization who could use a decent welcoming after being the joke of the league since their inception in 1998.
As a resident of St. Petersburg and a non-baseball fan, I DO NOT want to end up paying for this new stadium in any way. I love my city and take pride in the successes of it over the last 15 years, as the high rises go up and a real skyline has began to develop. The waterfront, which I used to jog along daily when I lived downtown is top notch. It is a wonderful place to live. Having that said, I don't think this thing is right for our city. In all honesty, I think they should move the Rays over to Tampa, which is the center city of our metro of about 3 million citizens and is home to our other professional sports teams (Bucs in the NFL and Lightning in the NHL, and oh yeah, an arena football team). The major league baseball team really belongs in Tampa. Let Tampa build another stadium and pay for it. We have enough waste in St. Pete as far as spending. I don't care what their plan is, we are going to end up paying for some of it.
And yeah, parking is a serious issue. As I said, I used to live downtown and when there are big events, there is a real parking problem. I can't imagine a baseball game letting out just two blocks from where I used to live several days a year. It would be like the 4th of July or New Year's fireworks letting out over and over again with traffic and parking nightmares.
I have been to Tropicana field for several events, including baseball games, expos, and concerts. It is not that bad. It is certainly not top notch as far as a baseball stadium is concerned but neither is the crappy team.
Maybe if the team started winning some games and for once actually made the playoffs I would change my mind. Nah.... still don't care. Still don't want to pay for it.
So OK.... if they do decide to do it, I seriously think they should use the old site for a new mall. There are over 500,000 people in the immediate St. Pete area (not in the city limits, I mean south county) and there is one crappy mall (Tyrone). All the good stores are at Tyrone. And although it is only ten miles by way of my odometer, it is a minimum of a 30 minute trip with the traffic congestion on the way there. We need more stores closer to the city center. Use that gigantic lot and stadium space for a new shopping center with a Best Buy, Borders, Costco, JC Penney, etc... We have plenty of places to eat on this east side of town (including downtown) but we are too far from the chain stores. They are talking about mixed use, with a few stores, housing, office, etc. For those of you that don't know the city, this giant lot is wedged in with Interstates to the west and south of it and on the other side of the south Interstate is the medical district and entry point to the ghetto. to the north and east is downtown, but several blocks from the high rise office building part of downtown. It really would be best used as a shopping mall. The condos are fine when the remaining sh*thole houses are torn down but condos and office would not even look good on that corner where the Tropicana field now sits.
So, if they move the team to Tampa or get there way with the stadium, they should turn the existing property into a mall. Maybe an open air mall.
Heck... just move the team over to Tampa and forget all this nonsense.
