February 19, 2010

Everybody and their sister has a Rays stadium plan

Oh, they're coming out of the woodwork in Tampa now: Yet another developer has floated an idea for a multiuse development project that would include a Rays stadium, this one in downtown Tampa.

Except that the developer in question didn't seem to intend for its plans to be public just yet, and backed the hell away from any specifics after the St. Petersburg Times leaked its designs:

"If there comes a day where the Rays want to leave the bay area region, this would be an option," [Land and Sand president Claire] Clements said of the conceptual plan that resulted. "That would be up to them, not me. It's just a vision."

Clements wouldn't say Thursday who she is working with on the project. She wouldn't discuss what, if any, efforts there have been to lock up land in the Channel district for a possible stadium, or how such a deal would be financed.

Nor did she deny working with anyone else or trying to obtain rights to land. She said she's not working with the Rays in any fashion.

Clements, 53, stressed that she had no intention of going public with any of her efforts until the Rays indicate they intend to leave St. Petersburg and Tropicana Field. She said she believes something her mother says: "If you stir it, it stinks."

Of course, Louis Brandeis put it slightly differently.