TAMPA, Fla. — As the Rays settle into their temporary Tampa home, the baseball diamond in St. Pete is only an outline.
What was once turf is now concrete.
Piping on the ground helps to drain the water when it rains. When you look up, all you see is metal and sky.
City of St. Petersburg City Architect Raul Quintana said, for $22.5 million, the roof can be replaced using tensile fabric. It’s the same sort of material that was ripped off of the Trop.
“It’s the same material, but it’s designed to today’s codes,” said Quintana. “So it’s a much stronger material. It’s thicker than what it was. So it’s designed to the wind loads today that far exceed the wind loads we had in 1995.”
Quintana said Major League Baseball had certain concerns they wanted addressed: the lighting, the acoustics and the ability to track a baseball. Quintana said they’ve checked all the boxes with their proposal.
But the material would be made and assembled overseas.
“The material is fabricated in Germany, then it’s shipped to China where it is assembled and those bundles are going to be sent in groups to the city,” Quintana said.
With President Trump’s talk of tariffs, Quintana said the price could go up, but they believe the funding proposal would cover that possibility.
If approved by the city council, the work would get underway during the 2025 hurricane season. The council is meeting Thursday to vote on funding the repairs.
“We’re going to be putting this back in the heaviest storm period of the year, between August and November, so what we’ve done is try to protect the area behind the seating from the eventuality of rain still happening through the summer,” said Quintana.
City of St. Petersburg City Development Administration Managing Director Beth Herendeen said there are no mold issues in the building.
“We have had environmental people come out multiple times,” Herendeen said. “They do testing, air testing, so no mold issue.”
But she said there are still areas with water intrusion, and they have removed drywall, carpeting and ceiling tiles.
All of which will need to be replaced, and means even more money to request.
“Every little piece of the puzzle is being looked at very carefully,” Herendeen said.
It’s an enormous undertaking during the Rays 2025 baseball season.
The roof repairs are one of several packages that Mayor Ken Welch’s administration will request from the city council. They will also need funding for metal panels, sports lighting, audio/visual and architectural work.
And while city leaders acknowledge there are no guarantees, they believe it’s doable to get fans back in the seats at the Trop by next spring.
