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Howard Franklin Bridge

Rays 2020 pitches a new ballpark for Ybor

April 18, 2018 By Kevin Weiss

Though recent on-field performances may suggest otherwise, the Tampa Bay Rays’ long-term future in the region should generate excitement to the community and fans alike.

At least that was the pitch from Jason Woody to a room filled with business leaders and elected officials at the North Tampa Bay Chamber’s breakfast meeting earlier this month, at Pasco-Hernando State College’s Porter Campus in Wesley Chapel.

Woody, president and CEO of Lions Eye Institute for Transplant & Research, spoke on behalf of Tampa Bay Rays 2020. He’s on the advisory board for the privately funded nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing a new Rays ballpark to Tampa.

Jason Woody, president and CEO of Lions Eye Institute for Transplant & Research, serves on the Rays 2020 advisory board. He was the featured speaker at the North Tampa Chamber’s April 3 breakfast meeting at Pasco-Hernando State College’s Porter Campus in Wesley Chapel. (Courtesy of North Tampa Bay Chamber)

Woody is making the rounds discussing the group’s initiatives and the progress made since the Rays officially announced a new stadium site in Ybor City, in February.

While the total costs and funding sources have not been identified, the initiative calls for relocating the Rays from Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg to a 14-acre parcel along Adamo Drive, between Channelside Drive and 15th Street, and adjacent to the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway. An additional option to acquire 27 acres is also available, if expansion is needed for parking and so on.

Woody branded the Ybor stadium site as “a perfect anchor, a perfect bookend” to the $3 billion Water Street development in downtown Tampa orchestrated by Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik.

Rays 2020 was co-founded by Sykes Enterprises CEO Chuck Sykes and Ron Christaldi, partner at Shumaker, Loop and Kendrick. It now features several Tampa business leaders and volunteers ensuring the baseball franchise remains in Tampa Bay.

The leadership team helped secure the land from Darryl Shaw, the CEO of BluePearl Veterinary Partners and a major developer in Ybor City.

Said Woody, “Most of the…problems coming up with the ability to build a new ballpark is the location and the land. They got the landowners together to say, ‘Hey, if it was to come here…would you be on board?’ and that’s what they did.”

He jokingly added, “The last thing you want is find out you’re going to build a great ballpark and somebody’s home is where the pitcher’s mound is.”

Conversations of a new Rays ballpark have been ongoing for over a decade, since Stuart Sternberg took controlling ownership of the team.

Those talks were heightened from perennially poor attendance and low revenues —

even in times of winning seasons and playoff berths.

Ample blame has been placed at the current stadium location, frequently an inconvenience for Tampa residents forced to fight rush-hour traffic and cross the congested Howard Franklin Bridge.

The more centralized Ybor City site, however, promises to deliver convenient access for a much higher yield of people living and working nearby. About 300,000 people live or work within 5 miles of the proposed stadium site. Moreover, about 1.6 million people live or work within 35 miles of the location.

Woody said those numbers “are almost triple” in comparison to Tropicana Field, while noting about 50 percent to 70 percent of the Rays current attendance is from people living in Hillsborough County.

“Every county in proximity had more attendees show up to a game than in (St Petersburg’s) backyard,” he said.

“People don’t realize this, but I’m not sure that even if we wanted to keep the Rays in St. Pete that Major League Baseball would allow it to happen. We don’t have the attendance. We don’t have the numbers,” he added.

The Rays contract with St. Pete runs through 2027, but the city has agreed to let the team pay to leave early. Some leaders, including Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan, say the first Rays game in Ybor City could happen by 2022.

Woody also shared some details about what the new ballpark may look like, and what it may cost.

Tampa Bay Rays 2020 is a privately funded nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing a new Rays ballpark to Tampa. (Courtesy of Tampa Bay Rays 2020)

Early sketches show an indoor ballpark without an upper deck, seating about 30,000 — considerably smaller than the Tropicana Field’s capacity of 47,000.

Woody portrayed it as “a unique ballpark” that delivers the intimacy of a spring training game, close enough “to hear the crack of the bat.”

While renderings show an option for a retractable roof, Woody pointed out the added maintenance and expense costs — upward of $100 million. He also cited the unreliability of retractable roofs, based on experiences of other MLB clubs.

“If you have looked, they have not been that successful. Some stadiums have had to manually close the roofs, which takes almost two days to manually retract it,” Woody explained.

The ballpark is still in design, so an exact figure hasn’t been determined, but Woody said its construction cost is “probably in the neighborhood” of $600 million to $800 million.

As for financing the stadium project, Woody suggested tourist development taxes could be utilized, along with contributions from Rays ownership, private funding and stadium naming rights.

“The very first thing is, we have to figure what this is going to cost and how much (the Rays) are going to come in, and then we’ll work from there,” he said.

Woody mentioned each of the Rays’ corporate sponsors have agreed to support the team’s move to Ybor City. There’s also the ‘Rays 100,’ a collection of 100 executives and civic leaders willing to serve as ambassadors for the effort to move the Rays across Tampa Bay.

The Rays 100 group, unveiled earlier this month, is expected to enlist local businesses and corporations to pledge financial support for a new stadium, through corporate boxes and season tickets.

Said Woody, “Two things make a baseball team successful — corporate sponsorships and butts in the seats. That’s the cheat code. Revenue goes up, you have a budget, and you can get better players on the field.”

Toward the the end of the meeting, a Rays 2020 representative extended an invitation to the North Tampa Bay Chamber to sign a letter of support for a new stadium.

In response, chamber members belted out a resounding “Yes!” — accompanied by a loud burst of applause.

For more information on Rays 2020, visit TampaBayRays2020.com.

Published April 18, 2018

Filed Under: Local News Tagged With: Adamo Drive, BluePearl Veterinary Partners, Channelside Drive, Chuck Sykes, Darryl Shaw, Fifteenth Street, Howard Franklin Bridge, Jason Woody, Jeff Vinik, Ken Hagan, Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway, Lions Eye Institute for Transplant & Research, North Tampa Bay Chamber, Pasco-Hernando State College, Porter Campus at Wiregrass Ranch, Ron Christaldi, Shumaker Loop and Kendrick, Stuart Sternberg, Sykes Enterprises, Tampa Bay Lightning, Tampa Bay Rays, Tampa Bay Rays 2020, Tropicana Field, Water Street, Ybor City

Shaping a vision for transportation in Pasco

August 9, 2017 By Kathy Steele

The next phase in a transportation vision for Tampa Bay took a local turn into Pasco County.

More than 30 residents from Pasco and Hernando counties met on Aug. 3 as a “working group” tasked with recommending future transportation decisions. The Florida Department of Transportation hosted the event at the Myrtle Lake Baptist Church in Land O’ Lakes.

Ed McKinney, planning and environmental administrator for the Florida Department of Transportation’s District 7 office, in Tampa, met with more than 30 residents from Pasco and Hernando counties to talk about Tampa Bay Next. The initiative seeks to develop a transportation plan for Interstate 275. (Richard Riley)

The Community Working Group session was open to the public. It is one in a series of meetings in the Tampa Bay region as part of the Tampa Bay Next initiative. A regional meeting in Tampa kicked off the new initiative in May.

There are six working groups in total, representing geographic areas of the region.

Tampa Bay Next replaces the controversial Tampa Bay Express project that would have built new toll and express lanes along about 90 miles of Interstate 275, from Manatee County to Pasco County.

One segment of the project remains.

The state transportation department plans to build a replacement bridge for the Howard Franklin bridge, which links Pinellas and Hillsborough counties.

That bridge replacement will include four multipurpose lanes and two express lanes.

But, the state roads department wants public input during the next two years for a new road project on I-275. The goal is to have plans ready by 2019.

Based on reactions to Tampa Bay Express, residents are tired of focusing only on car-driven road projects, said Ed McKinney, planning and environmental administrator for FDOT’s District 7 office, in Tampa.

New Port Richey resident Kelly Miller talks about priorities for Tampa Bay Next. Miller participated on one of five teams that held break-out sessions to come up with recommendations on transportation needs along Interstate 275, and in Pasco County.

Tampa Bay Next is meant to start conversations.

“We’re not going to show you any projects,” McKinney said. “We’re not going to show you any plans…We hear over and over we need to be thinking differently. People who say that are absolutely right,” he said.

Some of the trouble spots already identified in Pasco include the State Road 56 interchange on Interstate 75, the east/west corridor of State Road 54 and State Road 56, the intersection of State Road 54 and U.S. 41, and the lack of transit options.

At the working group sessions, people divided into five teams that prioritized transportation needs. They also made organizational decisions for future meetings.

As a group, they voted on priorities, based on a compiled list of recommendations from every team.

Top priorities included:

  • Adding light rail, possibly on U.S. 301 and the State Road 56 extension, and more bus service to destinations and high traffic areas
  • Converting CSX rail lines for passenger service
  • Providing Bus Rapid Transit, or BRT, to serve the area

The session also produced a longer list of traffic problems people want addressed.

Requests and complaints included:

  • I-75 and State Road 56 – fix it
  • I-75 and Overpass Road – do it
  • State Road 54 and U.S. 41 intersection – fix it
  • Put multi-use trail on one side of State Road 56 extension and let it meander
  • More park and ride facilities
  • Extend Tower Road to State Road 589 and widen U.S. 41 – Yay Bexley!
  • Most of east Pasco is shoved onto I-75
  • Too many (development) entitlements on State Road 54
  • Plan for more recreational and bicycle trails

Once priorities were decided, Land O’ Lakes resident Jack George posed a question during public comment.

“What is the end game here? What is the objective?” he said. “I haven’t heard that tonight and, without a goal, I don’t know how to get there.”

McKinney said the state department of transportation planned a series of video “primers” to provide information on a broad range of topics, including how projects get funded. The primers hopefully will educate people on issues such as how projects are developed and funded, and allow for “longer conversations.”

The videos will be posted online, McKinney said.

David West, left, and Judy Geiger discuss a transportation vision for Interstate 275, and Pasco County, at a public meeting hosted by the Florida Department of Transportation.

Tampa Bay Next isn’t the only transportation initiative in Pasco.

Kris Hughes, the county’s planning and development director, offered perspective on some ongoing efforts.

For example, vision planning for State Road 54 and State Road 56 is entering a second phase, with a public meeting on Aug. 24 at 5:30 p.m., at the Pasco Utilities Administration Building, off U.S. 41.

The county is partnering in that effort, while also completing a separate planning study in the area.

Hughes also noted that new technology, including driverless cars, will be part of new development in the Connected City corridor in northeast Pasco.

“This is a very complex, very intricate system of efforts,” Hughes said.

Published August 9, 2017

Filed Under: Local News Tagged With: Community Working Group, Connected City, Ed McKinney, Florida Department of Transportation, Howard Franklin Bridge, Interstate 275, Interstate 75, Jack George, Kris Hughes, Land O' Lakes, Myrtle Lake Baptist Church, Overpass Road, Pasco Utilities, State Road 54, State Road 56, State Road 589, Tampa Bay Express, Tampa Bay Next, Tower Road, U.S. 301, U.S. 41

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February 23, 2021 By Special to The Laker/Lutz News

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Live Oak Theatre is now selling tickets for its Acorn Theatre production of “Aladdin jr.” Performances will be March 18 through March 28, at the Carol and Frank Morsani Center for the Arts, 21030 Cortez Blvd., in Brooksville. Seats are $15 for adults and $8 for children ages 13 and younger, when accompanied by an adult. For show times and tickets, visit LiveOakTheatre.square.site, email , or call 352-593-0027. … [Read More...] about ‘Aladdin jr.’

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The Blooming House Junk Shop, 12409 Curley St., in San Antonio, will host a fifth anniversary JunkFest Celebration on Feb. 27 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. There will be more than 40 vendors, food, live music, and tons of ‘junk.’ For information, call Laura Bloomer at 813-541-9234, or visit the shop on Facebook and click on the event tab. … [Read More...] about 02/27/2021 – JunkFest celebration

02/27/2021 – Living history

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03/06/2021 – Bridal Trunk Show

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