John Romano: One year, $56 million to restore Tropicana Field. Best of luck with that.

John Romano, Tampa Bay Times on Apr 7, 2025

Published in Baseball

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — On a better day, this news would have been celebrated.

The City Council approved funding for the repair of Tropicana Field’s roof, which likely means Major League Baseball is not yet done with St. Pete and a maligned-yet-endearing stadium will live to see another ballgame.

So why wasn’t the decision greeted with champagne corks and proclamations?

Maybe because the idea of spending at least $56 million — including the $22.5 million approved for the roof on Thursday — to fix a stadium on death’s door seems wasteful.

Or maybe because the city’s hope of being reimbursed by FEMA seems overly optimistic given the current mindset in Washington D.C.

Or maybe because you anticipate this saga will end up in the courts because the tight schedule for repairs will not be met or there will be disputes over what constitutes a Major League-ready facility.

Even if repairing the Trop feels like good news, there’s still a long, treacherous, hurricane-dodging road that must be navigated to reach the sound of rallying cowbells on the other side.

Particularly since the go-ahead to begin repairs came less than 72 hours after the official death of a redevelopment plan for the Historic Gas Plant district, a new stadium and the love affair between a city and a team.

“We read all of the rhetoric, we hear from the public that we should not be moving forward. We should not be repairing the Trop because the (redevelopment) deal fell apart, right,” council member Brandi Gabbard said. “And to me, two very different things. Yes, they are with the same entities. Yes, it is the same site. But this is our contractual obligation that, frankly, we all inherited.

“I don’t like it any more than anybody else that we’re looking at spending $23 million today on just the roof, recognizing that there’s going to be other costs that are going to come to us.”

That sounds like the first reading of a pre-nup ahead of a pending divorce.

The city, understandably, is not happy about spending tens of millions for a Band-Aid on a relationship that now appears doomed. The Rays are not happy about being painted as the bad guys. The fans are not happy because, at this moment, there is no end in sight.

And, meanwhile, the Trop will likely never be the same.

The roof is the most noticeable repair, but the building has other issues. Drywall and major panels below the roof have to be replaced. Electronics and the stadium’s sound system are in peril. The field has been torn out and will need to be redone. Some of the movable bleachers in the outfield were damaged. Garbage cans and buckets are spaced out in corridors to collect dripping rain.

The actual replacement of the roof will not take place until later this summer, which means it will be happening during hurricane season and daily thunderstorms that could flood a stadium not built to handle water. City officials say there are currently “no mold issues” but it’s hard to imagine that won’t become a problem at some point.

The Rays were skeptical in November that the building could be fixed for $56 million or that it could be done in time for opening day 2026. They only got on board with repairs when MLB commissioner Rob Manfred stepped in to say he was not in favor of the Rays playing in temporary housing for multiple seasons.

The team, instead, had been seeking a settlement with St. Pete for not having Tropicana available for the final three years of the use agreement. City administrator Rob Gerdes said in the council meeting on Thursday that the only way that was going to happen was if the Rays put that settlement money toward building a new stadium in St. Pete. You can guess how that conversation concluded.

For now the Rays are staying mostly mum, but you can bet they’ll speak up if it begins to look like the repairs will not be done by this time next year or if the city tries saving money by not bringing the Trop up to major-league standards in various ways.

The best part about having the Trop fixed is that it gives Tampa Bay a little more time to come up with a permanent solution for baseball. Does that mean Stuart Sternberg sells to a local buyer? Does that mean Hillsborough County gets serious about building a ballpark?

Those are two possibilities. Another possibility is that the Rays take their time deciding their future. That seems to be what Manfred was warning against when he said last week that he wants Sternberg to have a “go forward” plan beyond a few seasons of a repaired Trop.

Maybe the building is no longer on life support, but repairing the roof is hardly the final answer. If this was a medical decision, the Trop would be removed from the transplant list because its lifespan looks so bleak.

____