What’s at stake in Pinellas County’s meeting on the new Rays Stadium bonds tomorrow

Elections have consequences: will the new Pinellas County Commission make a U-turn on stadium financing?

The agreement to build a new stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays hit a roadblock recently, as the Pinellas County Commission has delayed a vote on issuing bonds that would help pay for what would be team’s new home field.

The current deal calls for Pinellas County to contribute $312.5 million, which is addition to the $287.5 million in bonds from the City of St. Petersburg. Without the county funds, according to the Rays, the deal is likely dead.

The County Commission had voted 5 to 2 in favor of supporting the stadium this past summer, but they delayed approving the first series of bonds in late October, and as a result of the November 5 election the Commission composition has changed.

Both of the earlier “no” votes, Dave Eggers and Chris Latvala, remain on the Commission but two of the “yes” votes are gone, replaced by new members (Vince Nowicki and Chis Scherer) who are considered unfavorable to stadium funding.

These new commissioners will be sworn in at the start of the November 19 meeting in which the issue of stadium funding will be discussed, and will need to quickly learn exactly what it is they’re voting for.

Tourism Development Primer: Where does Pinellas County’s money come from, and what can it be used for?

The Tuesday vote is on whether to assume debt to support the building of a new stadium in St. Pete. The total debt after interest would be far above the $312.5 million that goes directly to the stadium. But if it were to be issued under the guidelines for self-supporting revenue bonds and notes, local tax payers are unlikely to bear the burden of the debt.

The money that would be used to back the bonds for the stadium does not come from general tax revenue collected by the county through sales or property taxes, but rather from revenue generated through the county’s lodging tax.

If you stay at a hotel or vacation rental in Pinellas County, in addition to the standard sales tax you pay another 6% tax that is called a Tourist Development Tax (TDT). It’s actually a series of taxes that counties can choose to impose on overnight stays.

By state law, those TDT revenues can only be used for items that are meant to support tourism. The majority of the funds (60% in the case of Pinellas County) are used for tourism promotion — this includes funding and staffing Visit St. Pete-Clearwater, which runs country wide marketing campaigns designed to encourage more overnight visits to the county.

The remainder of the revenue can be used for investment in events and capital goods that are at least tourism-adjacent.

Beach nourishment is a key budget item for any coastal community. Beaches are an enormous draw for tourists , but if we leave things up to Mother Nature we find that the sand from one beach gets routinely washed away and dumped somewhere else. Storms can accelerate beach erosion and more extreme storms can increase the financial burden of beach preservation.*

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

But when we go down the list of Pinellas County needs — improved roads and transit; affordable housing; better schools; protection against flooding — these are not items that can be covered by hotel taxes.

In recent years the state has loosened its guidelines a bit to permit some additional infrastructure and transportation spending, but these outlays still must meet the needs of tourists, so for example covering the costs of the “trolley” that drives between the beaches would be allowed, but paying for transit improvements to help area commuters would not be.

Paying to renovate, or borrowing to build professional sports facilities? Well that is not only allowed, but it is specifically named as a purpose of the Tourism Development Tax (remember, I’d said it was a series of taxes). Two percent of the Pinellas County hotel tax is the Professional Sports Franchise Facility Tax and the Additional Sports Franchise Facility tax, which specifically names stadium/arena development as its goal. (To be clear, the county is not required to use two percent of its hotel tax revenue on sports facilities.) So there is no question that money CAN be used for professional sports facilities.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, the county tourism board had built up a large surplus of funds, since Pinellas tourism had recovered after the early months of the pandemic but the tourism board had not resumed its grant programs. As of this past May, thanks to these reserves and robust hotel tax collection, the county administrator believed that the county could pay for beach nourishment and a new baseball stadium, in additional to potential investments in renovation/expansion of the Dali Museum and the Phillies minor league and spring training complex.

It’s possible that Hurricanes Helene and Milton will have led to lower tax collections, or will increase the costs of beach nourishment, which could indeed put a stadium investment in jeopardy — the current budget forecast does already include a dramatic spike in beach nourishment spending for 2026. But at this point, we don’t know whether hotel tax collections will fall below projections, nor do we know whether or how much the previous beach nourishment estimates will need to be increased. [Note: we reached out to Visit St. Pete/Clearwater asking for recent expenditure information, but as of publication we had not received the information]. Without this information, it’s hard to determine whether the county’s Tourism Development Tax would be insufficient to pay for a new stadium.

Why would the County stop the bonds from being issued?

I can understand why elected officials might be reluctant to use taxpayer dollars to fund a baseball stadium, and in particular a stadium to house a team owned by very wealthy people who will use this public investment to get wealthier.

For example, St. Pete councilmember Richie Floyd has been a consistent “no” vote on the stadium because he is against providing subsidies to large business, across the board. If a local government simply said “sorry, we won’t do that” I personally would be sympathetic, and even supportive.

But let’s be clear: this is not the position of the Pinellas County Commission, either by their past policy or their comments online and to the media.

Photo by Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

The Commission’s reluctance to support this endeavor can’t be due to their concern about using tax dollars to support a private business, because the entire purpose of the Tourist Development Tax is to support the private hospitality industry by promoting local tourism, and because the Commission has provided funds toward the renovation of the Blue Jays facility (and seems poised to do the same for the Phillies).

Several county commissioners and other local officials have expressed dismay that the Rays will play in Tampa in 2025 while Tropicana Field is renovated, but that seems like a red herring.

Steinbrenner Field, which was renovated in 2017, has better facilities, better access to transportation, and a larger capacity than either of the minor league stadiums in Pinellas County. And Baycare Park, home of Phillies spring training, was itself flooded during the hurricanes, and is undergoing an active cleanup. It’s not yet clear whether MLB or the MLBPA would have agree to a full season of games at either Pinellas based venue.

The Blue Jays stadium is located in a largely residential neighborhood and the impact of a full major league season there could be problematic. And if the Phillies complex were ready to host a full season of major league baseball, why is the team asking the county for $40 million in upgrades?

So that leads us to ask: if Pinellas County has robust hotel tax revenues and reserves, and if hotel tax revenues can’t be used to meet the most pressing needs of Pinellas County residents, why not use these funds to help build a new stadium in St. Petersburg and ensure that major league baseball remains in the county past 2028?

Would the county commission be enthusiastic about supporting minor league baseball in the area, but unwilling to support major league baseball?

One of the lead Commissioners against the bonds being issued announced this morning that he is looking forward to meeting with the Rays in the near future, so the Tuesday vote may result in another rescheduling to allow for more conversations, but the reason for those talks is not immediately clear.

Right now the Commission math does not look great for Rays stadium funding, but for all of the focus on tomorrow’s meeting, it should be noted the actual deadline to float the stadium bonds is March, 2025.

So it’s worth paying attention to both to vote tomorrow, and to the specific reasons given for either approving or denying the issuance of bond, if they get any airtime.

The Commission will meet on Tuesday, November 19, at 2:00 PM. This link also provides information about how to offer comments either before or on Zoom during the meeting.

You can find the agenda here; stadium funding is Item 22. The meeting will be livestreamed on the County Commission YouTube channel.

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*Pinellas beach nourishment is likely to be more costly in the coming years for another reason. The federal Army Corps of Engineers will often cover over half of the cost for beach nourishment, but they require easements to be able to access private property in order to have access to beach areas. Many Pinellas County owners of beachfront property have balked at providing these easements, and the County has decided it would rather spend millions more of its own money to preserve its beaches than fight with landowners over easements. Read more about this conflict here.