Government backing has been approved to enable the Tampa Bay Rays to finally build a new ballpark for the team, replacing arguably major league baseball’s most dismal venue. But local officials see the Field of Dreams development as more than that: an opportunity to transform the west-Florida city into a “world-class tourism destination” at the same time.

Pinellas County Commissioners approved on Tuesday spending about US$312.5 million for its share of the 30,000-seat ballpark from revenue generated by a bed tax that can only be spent on tourist-related and economic development expenses, adding to $417.5 million that the St. Petersburg City Council approved for the stadium earlier this month.

The $1.3 billion ballpark will guarantee the team stays put for at least 30 years and is part of a broader $6.5 billion redevelopment project that supporters say would transform a 34-hectare tract in the city’s downtown, with plans in the coming years for a Black history museum, affordable housing, a hotel, green space, entertainment venues, and office and retail space.

“This is so much more than a baseball stadium. It is poised to become, if we do it right, a world-class tourist destination,” said Commissioner Janet Long. “It’s more than about the baseball stadium. It’s a transformational, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,”

The linchpin of the project is the planned roofed stadium, scheduled to open for the 2028 season. It caps years of uncertainty about the Rays’ future, including possible moves across the bay to Tampa, or to Nashville, Tennessee, or even to split home games between St. Petersburg and Montreal, an idea Major League Baseball rejected.

The rest of the project would mainly be funded by a partnership between the Rays and the Houston-based Hines global development company. It will take decades to complete.

The site, where the Rays’ domed, tilted Tropicana Field and its expansive parking lots now sit, was once a thriving Black community displaced by construction of the ballpark and an interstate highway. St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch says one of his priorities is to right some of those past wrongs in what is known as the Historic Gas Plant District.