Tampa Bay Rays releases early renderings of proposed stadium
The Tampa Bay Rays professional baseball franchise has released renderings for a proposed stadium and mixed-use district with design by Gensler and Populous for Tampa in Florida, USA.
American architecture studio Populous is listed as a design partner in the design of the new ballpark, which would be realised as the league's smallest with a seating capacity of just 31,000, if it is approved for a proposed 2029 completion.
Gensler is the architect of the master plan, a comprehensive scheme that integrates parts of the local Hillsborough College's campus into a new neighbourhood called the "Champions Quarter".
Details of the plan include a redevelopment of the college's 113-acre Dale Mabry Campus.
Renderings show a stadium with an elliptical arch supported by a gridded ceiling structure and covered in translucent material. The team is hoping to engender a distinctive gameday experience framed by a transparent roof canopy that repeats the diamond shape of the playing surface.
The ceiling structure cantilevers over the facades of the stadium, which will feature a mix of curtain wall and terraced facades that may allow the stadium to blend in with the proposed adjacent structures.
These include several smaller built structures, indoor planting, and fan-oriented "celebration areas."
The renderings depict a comprehensive environment lined by the public retail promenades that are now common to the typology. These provide a pedestrianised edge to the footprint of the stadium, which is serviced by open facades on either side of its vertices.
It emerges 15 months after Tampa Bay's current home in St Petersburg, Tropicana Field, suffered damage to its PTFE membrane roof as a result of high winds during Hurricane Milton.
The proposed location would put the stadium well away from the water, inland from the current coastal location.
The Rays ownership group said it will "continue to evolve based on further study of the site and ballpark design concepts as well as input from local leaders and residents".
Addressing a long-rumoured exit from the city, the new ownership group is confident that having a new "forever home" will ensure the team's permanent presence in Tampa.
"We believe with conviction that we're going to be able to create a world-class work-live-learn-play development here in Tampa Bay," the team's CEO, Ken Babby said in January.
"Our community can be assured, however, that we want the ballpark and district design to reflect the voices of the people who live, work, study, and operate businesses here," Babby added.
The proposed scheme, which has no set price as of today, will reportedly be "100 per cent privately financed.
A similar district-sized proposal made by its then-owners for the Historic Gas Plant District in St Petersburg failed to receive public backing for its $1.3 billion cost before the team was sold last year.
American professional baseball is revamping its Major League facilities ahead of an anticipated expansion over the next decade, led by a BIG and HNTB-designed "armadillo-shaped" home for the Las Vegas franchise.
Populous has been leading much of the stadium construction underway worldwide, with an in-progress stadium for the Buffalo Bills NFL team and with its work on the world's largest football stadium in Morocco.
The images are courtesy of the Tampa Bay Rays.
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