Local Officals Concerned About Tax Amendment's Impact on Rays Ballpark

The Ryan Gorman Show podcast, presented by Farah and Farah, accident attorneys, Tampa. Let's bring in Tampa Bay Business Journal, editor at large, Ashley Kreitzer. You can find all of her reporting and all of her team's really great work at Tampa Bay Business Journal.com. You can also follow her on Instagram at Ashley Kreitzer. And Ashley, I want to talk about your new report in the journal back earlier this month, Hillsborough County officials. They wanted to add safeguards to the raised ballpark deal tied to the property tax amendment. Tell us about that. Well, it sounds like Hillsborough officials might have been listening to you, Ryan, because this is. An issue that you have raised repeatedly this idea of what happens if the property tax referendum, which would eliminate some property taxes in the state of Florida. If that passes, what does that mean for this deal? And according to some emails and draft documents that were obtained by the business journal, it looks like officials wanted to create those safeguards, a contingency plan, even up to a termination provision, if that... referendum passes. Now, we're told that the termination provision is no longer on the table by a source close to the deal. But these documents that were obtained show that this was a real concern, which you have been raising all along. Yeah, it should be a real concern. So we've got that going on. There also seem to be some concerns about some of the rosier economic projections that we've seen tied to this whole deal. Yes, there were some documents that said that what has been proposed so far, the development milestones were fewer and at a much slower rate than what was initially shown on the economic impact consultants report. And remember, that's so key because the economic impact of that mixed-use district surrounding the ballpark, that's what's been pitched as the ultimate ROI on taxpayer dollars in the ballpark. Like, that's the whole reason the county and city are considering putting... dollars into the ballpark is because of the economic impact that would spring out of that ancillary development. But at least as these, again, these documents are from early July and this is a deal that seems to shift shapes daily. Back in early July, the documents were saying, you know, this still isn't, it's still unclear how these milestones would provide sufficient revenue to issue increment bonds to finance the deal. So there were some real concerns. And I think it was in the middle of July that Ken Hagan, who is chairperson of the county commission and a longtime champion of this deal, he went on another radio show and said that, you know, we still need specifics on the mixed use development. And I think if that's something Ken Hagan is talking about, that's very significant. Like I said, he's a very outspoken champion of this deal. Right, who I cannot get to come on the show, unfortunately. So we're joined by Tampa Bay Business Journal, editor-large, Ashley Kreitzer. Those concerns that were brought up earlier this month, I don't see why they wouldn't still be concerns at this point. There's no evidence. I haven't seen anything saying that raise ownership has alleviated those concerns. And then the property tax amendment, well, that's not going away. I mean, that's up for a vote in November.

Right. And so we don't know the status of these things. All we can say is that this was the status of things as of early July. A Hillsborough County spokesperson did tell us they cannot provide any specifics related to those items because discussions are constantly evolving. And so any information could be immediately outdated. But to your point, those are issues that. don't seem to be changing much. I mean, we don't know where they're out on their development proposals and the square footage and what, you know, number of hotel keys or number of apartment units. But so far, no one has surfaced to say that that's been resolved. All right. Let's shift to another story that you were covering this week. What is going on with different cities in these midtown? development projects. We've got the one in Tampa, which is a pretty incredible, big success. And now Planned City, looking to get into the Midtown game. They are, and I will say this is a very similar development to Midtown Tampa and that it is mixed use, urban, it's adjacent to downtown Planet City. It is in no way related to Midtown Tampa. It's St. Petersburg-based developer. The developer of Midtown Tampa is out of New York, so they're very separate projects, but conceptually very similar. And that's because I think this idea of mixed use, you know, being able to live, work, play, eat, shop. Everything in one walkable little district is very appealing to a lot of people. And developers see that they can make a premium on that because that's the kind of place people want to be. So then if there's demand for it, retailers will want to be there. They can charge top of market rents. And mixed use is just kind of this ecosystem that continues to feed on itself. And Plant City, that's an area that continues to grow on its own. So adding this, this is just the continuation of growth that we've been seeing. for some time. Totally. And Plant City, you know, it's a small agricultural community, but they have a historic downtown. And there is a lot of renovation, rehabilitation to the historic buildings. They're already underway. And now, in addition to everything that's already going on in their downtown, we're talking about a mixed-use development adjacent to downtown that they... City officials also want to see this sort of connect to downtown. Like it's going to be separate from downtown, but they want to make it, you know, so that you can move back and forth between the two districts. And then if you get outside of that urban core of Plant City, you also just have so much housing development happening there. You know, as as folks continue to get priced out of Tampa, Brandon Val RICO, Plant City is just in the wave, in the growth, the path of development, if you will. And so it makes sense that you're seeing a lot of subdivisions, a lot of big... home builders in that area. So you're seeing it on both fronts out there. You're seeing the suburban development as well as closer to the urban core. We're joined by Tampa Bay Business Journal, editor at large, Ashley Kreitzer. You can find all of these reports and a whole lot more at Tampa Bay Business Journal.com. Final story I want to get to a former Tampa Bay Area CEO set to lead Cracker Barrel. Boy, talk about taking on a big job.

So David Dino was the CEO of Blumen Brands, which is the Tampa-based parent company of... Outback Steakhouse is their biggest brand, but they also have Bonefish and Carrabahs and Fleming's Prime Wine. And he led the company through the pandemic. And it was really fascinating. I was able to profile him coming out of that. And Dino was someone who was not only viewed as very calculating and shrewd business. He was also viewed as someone that people really liked. He was viewed as someone that people thought, you know, he was just funny. He had like this Midwestern upper that you know people anyone who's met him talks about his Midwestern upbringing so he kind of checked both boxes that you would want in a CEO you have the professionally competent and the personally enjoyable so it's not too big of a leap to think that he would get snapped up by another company. You know, Blumen, I believe there was an activist investor situation and he exited the company in the middle of that. But he, you know, I think he was one of the most highly thought of CEOs in the Tampa Bay region. Is he unlikely to oversee another major disastrous rebranding effort from Cracker Barrel? Does he seem to have the smarts to stay away from something like that? I think so. He served on, I think he is very savvy about that. He served. He was one of the people who served on President Trump early on had like a COVID-19 task force response. thing made up of business leaders and he was one of the people to be part of that. So, but it's interesting because when we covered his exit in 2024, he said he was retiring. But, you know, I guess if you're good enough, he get called back off the, back off the bench. They made him an offer. He couldn't refuse. Tampa Bay Business Journal, editor at large, Ashley, you can find all of her work, all of these stories and a whole lot more again at Tampa Bay Business Journal.com. Ashley, really appreciate it. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks for having me. Make the Ryan Gorman Show podcast a preset on I Hard Radio. Presented by Vera and Vera. Accident attorneys, Tampa.