Atlanta Braves Seem Content to Wait Out Politics for New Spring Home
Political Process Causing Stumbling Blocks for New Braves Spring Proposal
In September, we reported on a proposal by a group including former major league player (and Brave) Garry Sheffield to turn a 240 acre Pinellas County, FL landfill site into a year-round baseball training facility. As part of this proposal, the Toytown land would include a stadium suitable for Spring Training with the Atlanta Braves as tenants.
Also at that time, we noted that there were some political considerations that were directly involved.
Since that time, some things have changed… including the makeup of the St. Petersburg City Council, thanks to elections held in November.
After Further Review…
Back in September, there were three formal proposals for use of the Toytown site. One of those was disqualified for violating a communications/lobbying rule, a second was being “ignored” for reasons related to general viability, and the third – the Sheffield proposal – was being held up due to issues with the Tampa Bay Rays.
Tropicana Field, the home of the Rays, sits in the city limits of St. Petersburg, FL. Actually, it’s geographically buried in the SE part of St. Pete — difficult to access by their preferred ticket-buying demographic – families from Tampa. In fact, it’s kind of ironic that the team is named after Tampa Bay, for it’s that very water feature that stands as a constricting barrier between Tampa (the city) and Tropicana Field.
The County would like to assist in helping the Rays find a new place to play. However, the St. Petersburg City Council had been hopelessly deadlocked (4-4 vote) on the matter of allowing the Rays to consider leaving their town (i.e., breaking their lease), which has left the County in limbo – not sure how to proceed on expenditures.
The Toytown site sits further north in surrounding Pinellas County with much better traffic access. Sheffield’s group has asked (as part of their proposal) for $11.7 million annually from the County to support their program (presumably this would be in the form of infrastructure improvements in the area and related considerations).
The County Commission feels restricted in its efforts to move forward on the Toytown site while the Rays are in this political limbo. Any votes to approve the Sheffield proposal or to spend any monies on that project would be premature so long as the Rays’ status is up in the air.
So that was October.
Next: Updates from Multiple Angles