Tampa Bay Rays begin soliciting work for new parking garages for Gas Plant District redevelopment
A packed Tropicana field during the home opener game of the 2024 season | City of St. petersburg
The Tampa Bay Rays and the City of St. Petersburg are getting ahead of the game by soliciting work related to a new baseball stadium and the redevelopment of the Historic Gas Plant District.
Rays Stadium Co. LLC is seeking a qualified firm to provide professional design-build services for one or two event parking garages to serve a new Major League Baseball stadium, according to a March 12th solicitation notice.
The new garages will replace existing surface parking lots and will be operational during the 2025 MLB season to provide parking for Rays games and other events at Tropicana Field.
The parking garages will accomodate additional parking while a new baseball stadium is built. Under the current timeline, the new stadium is expected to open in time for the 2028 baseball season.
According to the existing use agreement between the City of St. Petersburg and the Tampa Bay Rays, the team can solicit work before approval of a new development agreement, subject to certain conditions. The city intends to enter into an agreement with Hines and the Rays to serve as the master developer for the overall 86-acre Historic Gas Plant site.
The Rays will spearhead the development of the parking garages and the new ballpark, which will serve as the anchor for nearly 8 million square feet of new mixed-use development.
Highlighted in red are the locations the city and rays have identified for potential parking garages | city of st. petersburg documents
The parking garages would have five to seven parking levels with 500 to 1,500 spaces and may have ground-floor retail. At full build-out, the redevelopment of the Historic Gas Plant District will include over 14,000 parking spaces.
The City of St. Petersburg and Rays have identified two potential parking garage sites - one along 1st Avenue South and 16th Avenue Street South and a second at 4th Avenue South and 10th Street South. The locations were identified in team’s proposal to redevelop the site.
However, the garage locations and capacities may change after additional analysis.
During non-events, the garages will be used for daily parking for visitors of surrounding neighborhoods.
The Rays and Hines development proposal showing where they initially identified the parking garage sites | Tampa Bay rays and Hines documents
The ground floors of the garages may consist of offices, restrooms, multimodal space for bike and scooter parking, and ballpark and event day functions such as TV truck parking and storage.
The exterior design may incorporate aesthetic paneling and sustainability features such as a green rooftop with solar panels.
Firms seeking to provide the design-build services must provide the estimated cost, construction services plan, a value engineering analysis, and construction schedule.
The deadline to submit bids is April 9th at 3 p.m.
The City of St. Petersburg will not be awarding the project. The Tampa Bay Rays will negotiate and contract directly with the selected firm.
Firms engaged with other aspects of the Historic Gas Plant redevelopment are allowed to participate, according to the city.
The Rays will shortlist firms on April 22nd and make a final selection on May 13th.
The scope of services and work will be finalized and detailed in the design-build agreement.
The solicitation comes after the city and Rays selected Populous as the lead architect last year for the new ballpark. Populous also designed the Rays' Port Charlotte spring training facility.