Last month, the Tampa Bay Rays released a draft memorandum of understanding for a stadium deal with Hillsborough County and the city of Tampa.
It detailed the team’s request for a billion-dollar public contribution and set June 1 as the deadline for all sides to approve definitive agreements.
But Rays CEO Ken Babby told the Tampa Bay Times on Tuesday night the team’s priority is securing a nonbinding commitment by the end of the month.
“We’re focused on a May MOU,” Babby told the Times. “It will be nonbinding.”
In a letter to county commissioners last month, Babby described the team’s deadline as “driven by practical constraints, not pressure tactics.” Losing “critical state funding” for the college, he wrote, would make “the deal economically infeasible.”
The Florida Legislature has a special session scheduled to start this coming Tuesday to approve the state budget. The budget could include $150 million to help rebuild Hillsborough College’s Dale Mabry’s campus, where the team is looking to build its $2.3 billion stadium.
It is unclear if a nonbinding memorandum of understanding would be enough for the state to approve funding for Hillsborough College, but it would at minimum signal a step in a positive direction for the stadium proposal.
“The state needs to know that the county, the city and the Rays are committed to this partnership,” Babby said Wednesday.
Hillsborough, however, has told the team it is unlikely to meet the June 1 deadline for definitive agreements.
A timeline, a county memo from last month reads, “cannot be reasonably considered” until all involved parties reach an agreement on the terms. After a preliminary agreement is reached, “it would likely take at least 60-90 days” to negotiate the deal’s development and funding obligations.
In response, the team said it would like to continue working toward a May memorandum of understanding “with the shared goal of completing the definitive agreements as soon as reasonably possible thereafter.”
“We remain confident that the project schedule can be maintained if the parties are able to finalize the definitive agreements as soon as possible in order to meet the 2029 season,” it read.
“It’s an intermediary step,” Babby said Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Tampa held a workshop on the deal, which gave City Council and staff the opportunity to delve into its potential details, and members of the public the chance to opine. Tuesday’s workshop, Babby said, was “extremely positive.”
Staff writer Nina Moske contributed reporting.
