The Tampa Bay Rays got good news Tuesday: their home stadium, Tropicana Field, is structurally sound after taking major damage from Hurricane Milton last month.
In a 412-page report, the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, detailed all of the damage done to the Trop by the high winds of Milton and determined that not only is it structurally sound, it can be fixed for around $55.7 million. The stadium will take quite some time to fix and won’t be ready to host games again until the start of the 2026 season.
The main damage to the ballpark, which opened in 1990, was to the fabric roof panels, which were essentially ripped off when the storm made landfall. Eighteen of the 24 panels failed due to Hurricane Milton’s high winds, and the failure of the roof allowed the rain and wind to cause more damage inside the stadium.
The Rays will need to find a place to play until their stadium is repaired. According to ESPN, MLB wants the team to stay close to home, which likely means they’ll play in one of the several minor league stadiums in the area. The Phillies, Yankees, Blue Jays, Orioles and Tigers all have their spring training complexes in the area, as do the Rays.
Repairs and new stadium deal could be in jeopardy
Figuring out the cost and where the Rays will play may be the easiest parts of this repair project — if it even gets off the ground. According to ESPN, while the city has an insurance policy on the Trop, the deductible is $22 million, and even when that’s paid the policy may not pay out enough to cover the rest of the costs. And with St. Petersburg and Pinellas County still reeling from Hurricanes Helene and Milton making landfall less than two weeks apart, repairing a stadium likely isn’t even close to a priority.
But there’s more. Pinellas County, the city of St. Petersburg and the Rays reached a $1.6 billion agreement this past summer to build a new ballpark to replace the Trop, an agreement that includes the demolition of the Trop sometime before the new stadium’s 2028 target opening date. The City Council could be reluctant to spend $55 million to fix a stadium that’s going to be demolished in a few years.
And to further complicate matters, the Rays’ new stadium deal itself is at risk of being killed. The Pinellas County Commission approved the deal back in July by a 5-2 margin, but when it came time for the commission to actually issue the bonds last month, they were upset the team might relocate outside of the county while the Trop is repaired and decided against issuing the bonds. The commission is set to vote on the bonds again next week, but the vote is uncertain now, since two of the yes votes from July are soon to be replaced by newly elected commissioners, who will be sworn in before next week’s vote.
According to Neil deMause of Field of Schemes, both new commissioners appear to be against the Rays stadium deal. Vince Nowicki, one of the new commissioners, recently told the Tampa Bay Times that Rays executives ran attack ads against him during his recent campaign and refused to meet with him.
