- [Narrator] This is a production of WEDU-PBS, Tampa St. Petersburg Sarasota.

- Coming up right now on WEDU is the plan for a new baseball stadium in St. Petersburg, a good one for the community?

We'll take a look at the pros and cons with the president and CEO of the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce Chris Steinocher, St. Pete City, Councilman Richie Floyd, Pinellas County Commissioner Janet Long and Ron Diner with the website nohomerun.com.

A discussion about the raised baseball stadium proposal next on Florida this week.

Welcome back the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team ownership reached an agreement last year with the city of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County to build a new $1.3 billion ballpark.

The plan includes redevelopment of the 86 acre Tropicana Field site, also known as the historic gas plant district.

The Rays want to build a 30,000 seat stadium with a fixed roof and giant windows that could be opened if the weather permits.

The team owners would pay for more than half of the stadium's estimated cost and any cost overruns.

The city and county would cover the rest.

St. Petersburg, Mayor Ken Welch says the city will pay its share of just over $300 million through bonds and not use property taxes, new taxes, or any tax increases.

The county is expected to pay its share mostly from bed taxes.

Along with the new ballpark, The Rays will partner with Houston based developer Heinz to spend more than $6 billion in private money over 20 years to build hotels, office and retail space.

The plan includes 4,800 market rate, residential housing units and 1200 units of affordable housing.

The ball club's current 30 year agreement at Tropicana Field expires after the 2027 season and The Rays are set to remain there until then.

If the new agreement is approved and there are no hiccups, ballpark construction would begin later this year and be completed by late 27.

The plan must still be approved by the St. Petersburg City Council and the Pinellas County Commission.

So we're gonna give everybody a chance to state the best reasons why they take their position.

Chris Steinocher with the Chamber of Commerce.

Chris, you're a supporter of the plan, why is it a good idea?

- Gosh, first of all, I'm, I'm so excited to be here to talk about St. Pete.

We say every good conversation starts with or ends with, I love St. Pete, I think that's what's happening right now.

We have a palatable momentum, there is a vibration in St. Pete that we have become a destination for not just tourists, not just for retirees, but now for a whole economy of businesses and professionals who want more of our economy.

And so what we are seeing now is how do we continue that momentum?

How can St. Pete not become so overcrowded, so expensive and can I create a place that my family, my kids, can live in?

What this offer is that we have put together, this plan allows all of us to grow with certainty that we have 86 acres and partners around us that all understand how best to move forward.

We're gonna create jobs for our community, we need those to power those.

We're gonna create places for people to live.

And this is not about rebuilding a stadium.

This is about rebuilding a neighborhood and building our community.

So those homes, that gas plant promise that we broke, that many down towns broke, of how do we make good with bad things we've done, that's all gonna happen in one place.

So if you would've told me a couple years ago that you weren't gonna raise my taxes as a citizen of St. Pete and we're gonna build a stadium, I'm saying, tell me more.

And when I find out that you're not just building a stadium and you're building places for me to work, for places to live, for a Woodson museum, to be there where we can honor some of our history as a community, I'm telling you, I don't know why we wouldn't do this.

- Alright, Ron Diner, let's go to you.

You're with a website called nohomerun.com.

Why are you opposed to this idea?

- Well, thank you.

Those of us opposed to the Rays-Hines deal, are doing so because of the $1.6 billion city and $800 million County cost the community resources.

St. Petersburg's massive investment would be better utilized for important community priorities that matter, fixing flooding problems, affordable and workforce housing and much more.

Or to stabilize taxes that will co certainly go up if we give away $1.6 billion.

The county would also be better, we feel utilizing these funds for what drives tourism and to put funds aside for beach re-nourishment.

This is not a fair deal.

Rays and Heinz should pay a fair price for the 64 acres to be developed and the Raise should pay fair rent to offset the real estate taxes not collected.

Ensure the stadium revenue and any profits of the team has sold, as the city and county are paying for half the stadium.

The 86 acres are primed for development with or without baseball and with or without Heinz.

There are many other major developers.

And while we love baseball and wanna see it stay in the Tampa Bay area, we love the city of St. Petersburg more.

And what's in the best interest of St. Pete for our children and our grandchildren and for everyone's children and grandchildren.

Baseball is not an anchor to attract developers to build offices and apartments and it does not drive economic or job growth.

Our economic engine is first tourism, focused on the beaches, the museums, the pier and the restaurants.

And two, knowledge based industry, healthcare, financial services, tech in our universities.

We need to take full advantage of the value of this property so that we have the money to spend on what matters to keep these engines running.

- Alright, and Ron, thank you.

And Janet Long, you're a supporter of the idea.

Why is it a good idea?

And if you wanna address anything that Ron brought up, feel free to do that too.

- Thank you.

Although, I don't know if I can address all of those things in the time allotted.

First of all, I respect Mr. Diner's comments and his opposition.

It's unfortunate that he has a lot of information that is not based on real factual information.

And for all of the things he is concerned about, I can assure you we have those same concerns.

We have those dollars set aside for affordable housing and for beach re-nourishment.

And I am telling you we can do it all because we have been very thoughtful about how we have spent our money and how we have also set it aside for these particular purposes.

The project is good, it's been vetted.

It will create 4,500 construction jobs and more than 15,000 annual jobs for our citizens throughout Pinellas County's economy.

It will also generate $3.5 million in county sales tax and tourist development taxes, which are a total economic output of over $460 million.

When you talk about the bed tax, which is our tourist tax, it's important to really understand how restricted those dollars are.

And that is done by the state legislature.

So for me, there are so many good solid economic reasons to support this project.

As a responsible elected official, it would be totally irresponsible not to support it.

- Alright, let's bring Richie Floyd in.

Richie, you're on the city council in St. Petersburg.

You're an opponent, why?

- Thanks so much for having me, I really appreciate it.

So the first thing to know is that there has not been a single stadium subsidy in the history of professional sports that is paid off to a community.

And this is the biggest subsidy in MLB history, more than twice the size of the subsidy provided to the Atlanta Braves to build their new stadium.

And their new stadium runs a $15 million a year deficit for that county.

So when I'm looking at the things that we have in St. Pete, the needs that we have, we've continually skimped on infrastructure spending.

Housing cost is prohibitively expensive.

Homelessness and hunger continue to persist in our city.

And instead of choosing to tackle those issues with a major plan, we've chosen to invest a major plan and a major amount of money into a billionaire's profits.

And so we don't need the studies to show us what the issue is here.

This project is projected to run a deficit for the city of St. Petersburg to the tune of over $250 million over 30 years.

That money's going directly into the profits of those who are gonna profit at the top.

And, I think that this is no different than trickle down economics at the federal level.

- Alright, so Chris, let me go to you on some of these points.

The biggest subsidy in the history of The Major League Baseball taxes will go up, in Pinellas County in St. Petersburg that Ron Diner said, and that the Rays and Heinz are not paying a fair price for the stadium.

What would you say to those guys?

- Gosh, there's a lot of good things there, but first of all, no new taxes, let's make sure that everybody understands that.

So when people say taxes will go up, I don't know what he's talking about.

Property taxes are going down in St. Pete because of the values are going up.

We're not asking for a sales tax, there is no sense of that.

So this is paid for money.

The property tax conversation that fascinates me, right now it's 86 acres that the county owns, that there's no property tax being paid.

It's a parking lot that creates none.

When we are finished with this, those 60 acres are gonna generate over $1.46 billion in property taxes in that three years.

So when people say it's not gonna generate revenue, I don't know what they're looking at on that.

And then, oh, by the way, this goes for longer than 30 years.

So when you talk about a payout, and then I hear that no subsidy has ever worked.

I don't know about that.

You look at Baltimore, you look at Chicago, Wrigley Field and those things were subsidy too.

And look at the development that has nurtured around all those.

So when we look at brand new stadiums, yeah we can certainly say there's thick different models.

But overall, when you build an activity center in the heart of your community, it pays off for every business around there and every property owner and everybody has a new option for that.

So those facts just aren't true.

And that notion that affordable housing... man as Janet Long just said, everything that people are concerned about are in this deal.

This has been the plan, this has been a process that we worked on for over 10 years of how do we live up to the promises that we've made?

How do we take care of others and how do we continue to generate great jobs?

This is the plan, there is no other.

So when people say, well we shouldn't just do this, there is nothing.

I am so mortified that there will be a day we're gonna stand in a parking lot for 10 years and look around and go, what the heck did we just do?

- Ron, let me ask you, what did you think about, the points that Chris just made?

- Well, regarding taxes, where I'm coming from is the city is gonna allocate $1.6 billion in resources to this project it's all gonna come from the city's coffers.

So to the extent that there is all kinds of other needs in the city that are gonna occur into the future, there's no way that the taxes aren't going to have to go up to compensate for the $1.6 billion that would otherwise be available.

Regarding the development, we agree with everything Chris is saying that the property is gonna generate a tremendous amount of benefits to the city.

Our argument is that the city does not have to allocate $1.6 billion to make this happen.

This property is prime for development.

It doesn't need a stadium to make it happen.

Property around the stadium has been selling for 10 to $20 million an acre.

Everywhere you look, there are construction cranes going on.

Central Avenue is booming.

This property is ready for development with or without.

And one more comment regarding affordable housing.

Commissioner Long mentioned that the money's been set aside and Chris mentioned it, this proposal has a provision for affordable housing, but the deal, unless it is changed, provides that Heinz and Rays can buy out of that requirement for a pretty small amount of money, $25,000 per unit and they don't have to build any affordable housing.

- Commissioner, what would you say, on this part of the subsidies if you could start there?

Will the subsidies provided by taxpayers in Pinellas and St. Petersburg be higher than what's been previously reported?

- Absolutely not.

And it's okay if you disagree with this whole economic development project, but it's not okay to make up your own facts.

For the love of God, we have not raised property taxes, we've been talking a lot about property taxes.

Well, let's talk about them because we have not raised property taxes in Pinellas County in the 12 years that I have been on the Pinellas County Commission.

And I am really proud of that.

Now listen, you're missing the fact that the tourist development funds are statutorily required to be spent on tourism related projects.

This project is more than just a stadium.

It is going to be a world class destination.

In my mind, I think about the coliseum in Rome.

I mean it was built to hold games in, but look at what it's turned into.

This stadium, we're calling it a stadium, the destination will be in use hopefully every day of the year and not just for baseball.

So I think there's a lot more in this plan than meets the eye.

And Mr. Diner keeps talking about how much he knows about it, but I promise you he is not up to date in the conversations that are being and are as we speak this moment, being continuously negotiated.

- And Chad, quickly if I could ask you, Ron made the point that the Hines could back out of building affordable housing at a price of $25,000 per unit.

Do you agree with that number?

- No, I don't agree with it.

These are reputable people, they're a reputable company, they wouldn't have been chosen if they weren't.

You've got to rely at some level on the history of people's intentions.

And I don't know how we've gotten to a place where everybody is always looking at the boogeyman jumping out of the closet for heaven sakes.

This is a good project.

The pros so far outweigh any cons and great if you wanna come up with opposition, but come up with opposition that is real and not just based on what you think it is.

- Alright, Richie, Floyd, city councilman, what would you say?

- I mean, there's been a lot of topics discussed.

I'll touch on a couple of them.

One for example, the $25,000 to get out of the affordable housing.

That's what the number is right now in order... it's the penalty for not doing the affordable housing and it costs significantly more to create affordable housing than $25,000.

So I understand the concern that is what is in the deal right now.

I'm hoping to see it changed in the future.

But another thing, taxes might not go up.

Well, you know, we're being promised that taxes won't go up.

But the same thing was promised the first time they built this stadium and taxes had to go up twice after they built the stadium the first time.

And so I hope that that's not the case if the deal goes through and I'll fight to make sure it's not the case, but I can't guarantee anything right now.

And so what this really is about is about, one, making sure like is this the right thing to do?

I'm not so sure and I have opposition for that reason, but there's another lane as well that says, are we doing it in the right way?

And we need to make sure there's strong contractual obligations to make sure that we get what we want outta this deal.

And that's what we're talking about when we say the affordable housing penalty is too low.

We need to make sure that the penalty is high enough to incentivize them to actually build it.

I trust them to do the best thing that's in the community's interest, but only so far as it generates profits for their bottom line.

And right now, that's not the case that we're gonna see and we just need to make sure that there's guardrails on the project.

And that's what we're talking about.

- Let me bring up something that former mayoral candidate Scott Wagman wrote in a recent op-ed in the Tampa Bay Times.

He wants The Rays to stay, but he thinks they're getting too much from the deal.

And this is what he said, "the deal on the table that the council will be asked to vote on isn't a good enough value for St. Petersburg.

Recent comparative values show that Rays-Heinz would be getting an enormous discount on the cost of the land.

Add in the infrastructure costs that the city will pay and the deal is way too lopsided in favor of Rays-Heinz.

Rays-Heinz should pay an additional 150 million on top of what's already been negotiated, while it doesn't add up to full value, it's enough of an increase to be reasonable given the significant profits that Rays-Heinz group will realize over the next 30 years.

So, Chris I gotta ask you, the Rays-Heinz group is getting 64 acres of downtown land for about 155 million, is that a fair price?

- Gosh, I love those critics that can from the backseat tell you that you can get more for a deal and could somebody probably negotiate more for a deal and any deal that we've worked on in our community?

Absolutely.

But I really don't believe it's about another a hundred million dollars.

I don't think, is that gonna make everybody happy if we get an extra a hundred million dollars?

It's not, that's not what this is about.

They are getting a fair deal on those 60 acres.

And when people say there's developers waiting in line, there were no developers waiting in line.

We've done this process twice.

The value that the Heinz Rays are offering us is twice what anyone else offered us for this kind of deal.

So I get these one parcels are going and even Ron Diner said a property went for 10 million.

It did and it went for 9 million, but it did because of the promise of what this does.

And so that $9 million... that increase from 3 million to 9 million is add on taxes that now are allowed to be spent on the things that people are concerned about.

So there is a natural affinity to making sure this works.

But this notion too that the Heinz group is gonna walk away from the affordable housing or any of these issues.

Hey listen, we're all concerned about that, but not also right now, the way it's written, if they walk away, the city gets the land back, the county gets the land back.

It's not like they can do it what they want with the land, we will always have that land.

So rest assured that if we feel like there is something, a promise being broken, we have put those guardrails in line there that, they can walk away, but we get what we always have had.

But I gotta believe that the largest developer in the world with the largest project in the country, they aren't walking away from anything that would be a heresy for their business and for their efforts.

So that's why we're excited we get the right partners here that have the right resources.

Anyone says there's more money out there, I haven't seen it.

We have not seen it, and we've been through this process twice now.

- Ron, what do you say to Chris?

I mean, he says that developers we're not lining up to join in and and redevelop this land.

And I'm also wondering, would you change your mind if the city got more... if it got more than 155 million for the land around the stadium?

- Well, to answer the second part first, again, as I said at the beginning, me and the other people that are concerned about this thing are only concerned about what matters to the city.

How can we maximize the return from this property so that we can meet the needs relative to flooding needs and housing and all the other needs of the city.

So we are a hundred percent in favor of the idea of the transaction.

Yes, what we say is a fair deal would be if the property was bought closer to fair value.

And what we are recommending that the city council should do in their due diligence is there should be a new appraisal made of the property based on what is planned for the property.

And if the property was sold for closer to fair value, that is all that anybody can ask for.

When it comes to the stadium part of the property, the city and the county, including interest are putting up $1.3 billion.

And the deal with the Rays is they keep all of the revenue from the stadium.

How is that a fair deal?

- Jack, let's go to you.

What would you say back to Ron?

- I find it interesting that in all this discussion, not one thing has been said about the incredible good corporate citizens, The Rays have been for our community.

Do you realize that they have poured $20 million back into this community?

That is a significant amount of money.

And I would like you to tell me what other corporate citizen do you know that has put that kind of money back into the community?

I mean, I am telling you what, they have been incredible partners for the county, for the city, and for our community.

They've been good to our children, they've done the right things in my mind.

And I do not see them as the big boogieman coming in to take advantage of anybody.

- And and do you think they're getting the land too cheaply?

- Well, what are we getting for the land now?

We're getting zero.

So I think considering everything that they've invested and are about to invest, that it's an incredibly good deal.

And I do not see a whole line behind them lining up to take their place to do what they are gonna do with this deal.

Are we gonna be satisfied if we just walk away from it and the land sits there vacant and lacking any attraction or attention for the next 20 years?

Because that's what's been there.

What's it been doing for the last two decades?

- Richard I wanna get your thoughts about this, but also there's promises of more green space, promises to restore Booker Creek.

There's promises to kind of make good on the people who were moved out of the gas plant district to offer them jobs and to offer them some sort of help affordable housing as we talked about earlier.

What's your take on whether or not this is some of the side deals are important to the people of the gas plant area?

- So the first thing to know is that this development deal is really two different things at once.

It's a stadium deal and it's a broader development deal that includes all of the housing and jobs and investment that's been discussed.

And we've had options to do all of that investment without subsidizing a stadium to the tune of half a billion dollars.

And we can get all of those things without the other.

We had the last mayor, the last mayor put forward a deal that did those exact things and didn't support a stadium at the same time.

And so we can negotiate that separately.

And so it's just sort of farcical or a trick to say that we can't get one of these things without the other, it's not the case.

We've had developers offer it to us, we'll have developers offer it to us again in the future.

What's most important is that we know that this project, when it includes a stadium, is going to run a deficit.

It is going to cost more money than we put out and that money is, represents a transfer of public wealth from the public sector to the private sector.

And so it's very important that we make sure that we don't do that to our community.

The more public goods we have, the better services we can provide.

And so I really support us making sure that that's not the case.

- Well, I wish we could go on, there's some things that Richie mentioned right there that we should be discussing.

But thank you all.

We're out of time and thank you for a great show.

Thanks to Chris Steinocher, Ron Diner, Janet Long and Richie Floyd, really appreciate you being here.

And thank you for watching.

If you have comments about this program, please send them to ftw@wdu.org.

We have a Facebook page, please like us, the show is available @wedu.org or on YouTube.

Our show is also available as a podcast.

You can download it wherever you get your podcasts.

And from all of us here at WEDU, have a great weekend.