Rays Add Public Forums for New Tampa Ballpark Plans

The Tampa Bay Rays are expanding their public outreach effort, adding two more community listening sessions as the franchise pushes forward with plans for a new 31,000-seat ballpark and mixed-use district on Hillsborough College’s Dale Mabry campus.

The team has already held three public forums this month at Hillsborough College, Jefferson High School and The Skills Center. The two newly announced sessions bring fresh opportunities for residents, students and business leaders to weigh in on a development concept that would reshape a significant stretch of Tampa.

The first of the new sessions took place Wednesday, March 25, at Press Box Sports on South Dale Mabry Highway. The second is scheduled for Thursday, April 2, at Robinson High School, located at 6311 S. Lois Ave. in Tampa. Both events run from 6:30 to 8 p.m., and both will feature Rays CEO Ken Babby.

Babby took the stage at the Press Box Sports event to mark the return of baseball season and hold an informal conversation about the ballpark vision. The April 2 session at Robinson High will shift to a more formal presentation, with Babby offering an overview of the current ballpark design and the broader district development.

Attendees at both events can submit questions directly.

The outreach effort stretches back to late February, when the Rays met with a local firefighters’ union. The public sessions are designed to pull in baseball fans, college students and faculty, nearby residents, and community and civic leaders. The team says feedback gathered across all sessions will factor into the final design as concepts continue to evolve.

Babby pointed to the forums as evidence that the project is being shaped by the community rather than handed down to it. “Each session gives us a better understanding of how we can create a Forever Home that is rooted in collaboration and partnership with our community,” he said. “Our focus remains on building something that reflects those priorities and creates a lasting impact for Tampa Bay.”

The ballpark concept, first unveiled publicly on Feb. 5, calls for a 31,000-seat stadium wrapped by retail, entertainment, residential and academic space. It would all sit on land connected to Hillsborough College’s Dale Mabry campus, which the institution has tentatively agreed to make available.

That arrangement cleared a significant hurdle in late February when the state approved the conveyance of land in Hillsborough County to Hillsborough College, freeing up the property for a reimagined campus built around the Rays’ development.

Hillsborough College President Ken Atwater framed the partnership as more than a real estate transaction. He pointed specifically to workforce development and student career pipelines as core benefits the college sees in the deal.

“We see tremendous opportunity to expand workforce training, create meaningful internship pathways, and better connect our students to careers right here in Tampa Bay,” Atwater said. “This partnership has the potential to open new doors for our students in ways that extend well beyond the classroom.”

The outreach strategy reflects the complicated political and financial path ahead. Any agreement of this scale, one that involves state land, a public college and a professional sports franchise, will require buy-in from multiple layers of government and community stakeholders. The Rays appear to be building that buy-in session by session.

The series of forums also signals a deliberate departure from how stadium deals have historically been negotiated in Florida, where backroom agreements often surfaced publicly only after the key decisions had already been made. Whether the engagement effort translates into meaningful design changes or serves primarily as a goodwill exercise is a question residents and watchdog groups should continue pressing.

For now, the April 2 session at Robinson High School gives South Tampa residents another direct line to the team’s leadership before the plan hardens into something more difficult to reshape. Anyone tracking this project closely would do well to show up and ask questions while the forum doors are still open.