Tampa Bay Rays share renderings of mixed-use district around new stadium

The Tampa Rays returned to Tropicana Field for the 2026 season after Hurricane Milton partially destroyed its stadium’s retractable roof in 2024, and the 2025 season was played at George Steinbrenner Field, the New York Yankees spring training venue. 

The roof replacement presented an opportunity the team had been considering for a while: moving home base somewhere else.

In February of this year the Rays shared exterior renderings of a new stadium and wider district designed by Populous, Gensler, Walter P Moore, and others. Interior renderings of the new ballpark were shared this July. The new stadium will replace the HOK-designed Tropicana Field, completed in 1990.

The sports-driven neighborhood would take hold in Hillsborough College’s Dale Mabry campus, where Steinbrenner Field is located, just northwest of downtown Tampa. 

Earlier this year, the Hillsborough College Board of Trustees approved “a Memorandum of Understanding with the Rays” to redevelop the campus as a mixed-use neighborhood around the ballpark. 

This week, the team shared renderings, from Gensler, that reveal glass office towers with expansive terraces that afford views directly onto the playing field. Office and retail space, a convention hotel, and housing will be located in a stretch of mid- and high-rise buildings next to the new stadium. 

Rays Chief Executive Officer Ken Babby recently said the development has caught the interest of Fortune 500 companies.

Even before Hurricane Milton ripped the roof, Populous shared renderings of a new stadium in Ybor City for the Rays in 2018, as reported by AN. Those plans were officially abandoned in December that year because the franchise failed to make a viable financial plan. More recently, a proposal circulated to build a Rays’ stadium in St. Petersburg’s Historic Gas Plant District. Plans for this were abandoned in early 2025, after Gensler produced visuals for the mixed-use project. 

Attendance at the Trop in St. Petersburg, Florida, has been low for a long time. Building a new stadium closer to downtown Tampa will make it easier for fans to reach the ballpark. There are also plans for the stadium to host concerts and other events year-round.

Renderings of the new stadium show an arena that can accommodate 30,000 spectators. Populous said the “seating bowl” is designed to offer “exceptional proximity to the field from every location in the ballpark.”

There will be sky views, a bar overlooking center field, and two video scoreboards that Populous affirms will be the “largest and most technologically advanced in Major League Baseball.” The Ray Tank, an aquarium for actual real-life team mascots, will be included in the new ballpark, much like the one at Tropicana Field  in the Cownose Clubhouse in center-right field. Skybridges will connect the buildings beyond the stadium. A network of pedestrian corridors and streets will make for a vibrant “walkable neighborhood,” Babby said.

For the Rays, strong hitters, good pitchers, and time are of the essence, their use agreement with the City of St. Petersburg to play at Tropicana Field is up after the 2028 season. 

The ballpark estimate for the cost of the new stadium is $2.3 billion. The Rays offered up $1.235 billion and all design and construction cost overruns, putting the team just over $1 billion short and in need of funding from the city, or county. 

The funding has been a frequent topic of debate among city politics; just this week the city seemed reluctant to increase taxes and find funding, the Rays are now looking to the county for the cash.

 If it all pans out, the new stadium is anticipated for completion in April 2029, the Rays said, in time for that season’s start.