St. Pete may reject spending $10m on Black history museum used to justify $1B Rays stadium deal

One of the main selling points of the Tampa Bay Rays Gas Plant District stadium development that is costing taxpayers more than $1 billion was that it would allow for incorporating a new building for the Woodson African American Museum, something that was featured prominently in stadium renderings. Since the area was originally an African American neighborhood before it was razed for urban renewal, this was supposed to bring the site “full circle” somehow, though the actual people evicted from the neighborhood and their descendents still never got their replacement housing.

Anyhoo, looks like the new museum building may not be happening anyway, because there isn’t enough money:

The Woodson has asked for $10 million from Pinellas County’s tourist development tax fund. But Visit St. Pete/Clearwater, the county’s tourism bureau, is not likely to recommend the funding because the Woodson’s patrons don’t book enough nights at hotels and other short-term rentals.

Now, not that every museum deserves public money to construct new buildings any more than every sports owner does, but there’s still more than a little irony in the county refusing to commit $10 million in tourist tax dollars to a Black history museum on a historic Black neighborhood site when a (white) billionaire is getting $1 billion for a baseball stadium on the site, much of it from the same fund. And doubly so when the decision is based on how many out-of-towners visit the respective attractions, something that past studies have shown is massively inflated in reports about Florida baseball teams.

In Visit St. Pete/Clearwater’s case, the visitor data appears to have been collected by asking people at various tourist sites (hotels, museums, the airport, the beach, the aquarium) what they came to town for, which is both pretty unscientific and likely to be skewed toward the particular sites that were canvassed. The survey questions themselves don’t appear to be posted online, just the PDF summary — oh, this is going to require a FOIL request, isn’t it? I’ll get on it shortly, but if any local reporters would prefer to take the lead, feel free to go for it, and I’ll happily report on your reporting once you get the results.

Meanwhile, even with the $10 million from the county, the Woodson museum would still only have $20 million on hand total, for a $33 million project. Rays owner Stuart Sternberg and his development partners have pledged an additional $10 million as part of a community benefits agreement, but that money is, according to the Tampa Bay Times, “contingent on completion of a financing plan, a guaranteed maximum price from a contractor and proof that the Woodson has fundraising deposits and/or commitments totaling at least 50% of that guaranteed maximum price” — so without the county money, Sternberg could be off the hook for his 10 mil. As always, stadium funding is signed in blood, spending on everything else is written on clouds.