This is Al Lang Field in downtown St Petersburg, which has been the site for Spring Training for decades. Now the Tampa Bay Rays want to build a new stadium there.
There's a lot of coffee shop conversation about the proposed Rays baseball stadium on the waterfront in downtown St Petersburg, as well as cocktail talk. This week a student reporter from the University of Florida wanted to interview me. To summarize what I told her: it's too soon to have a conclusion because there are too many unanswered questions: who will pay? how much? what guarantees will the city have that development will be done timely and according to plan at the old site? I want to see a scale model of the stadium and its "sail" roof along with the surrounding buildings to get the proportions right - or at least an interactive 3-D model of those on the web.
St Pete has a unique and wonderful waterfront downtown - I want to be sure that isn't harmed. The St Pete Sailing Center is a great institution - I don't want to see that diminished. Available parking for shopping, eating and strolling is part of the desirability of downtown St Petersburg. Even now for gatherings like the 4th of July people are parking on the residential streets of the Old Northeast, blocking driveway access, etc. So parking IS an issue, and I don't want a downtown with more parking garages, unless they're underground.
I like sports and I'm in favor of sports facilities, but prime waterfront isn't necessarily the right place for that. Many people don't realize that there's more economic benefit from art and culture than from sports - and downtown St Pete is already a hub for art, music, museums, galleries, theater and other culture.
Many visitors talk to me as if the new stadium is a done deal, and don't realize that using (whether selling or long term leasing) that waterfront land must come before all the voters of St Petersburg to determine if they want the land used that way. So far, over the last decades, the voters have been pretty smart in how they voted - which projects were approved, and which ones were disapproved. I have confidence the voters will do what's right for St Pete.
Yes, this post is filled with Is - but that's what the reporter asked for.
