ST. PETERSBURG — Mayor Rick Kriseman has said all along that St. Petersburg is the best place for the Tampa Bay Rays to build a new baseball stadium.
On Friday, he said the new deal he will present to the city council next week may convince the Rays of the same thing.
The agreement Kriseman and the Rays have worked out highlights the incentives and possibilities that make the 85-acre Tropicana Field site financially lucrative to the team and perhaps more appealing to St. Petersburg City Council members who will vote on it Thursday.
Approval by the council will allow the Rays, who have withstood years of poor attendance, to look beyond the city and into Hillsborough County for potential new stadium locations as they have sought to do for several years.