Tampa Bay Rays pick ‘Forever Home’ construction team

Image: Tampa Bay Rays

Major League Baseball’s (MLB) Tampa Bay Rays have chosen AECOM Hunt and Turner Construction as the construction manager at risk for its proposed $2.3 billion new Forever Home.

WUSF said AECOM Hunt and Turner were chosen from four bids answering the team’s July request for qualifications.

The Tampa Bay Rays are an American professional baseball team based in the Tampa Bay area (US). The Rays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a Member club of the American League (AL) East Division.

The 25,025-seat Tropicana Field, nicknamed ‘The Trop’, is a domed multipurpose stadium located in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. ‘The Trop’ is the home of the Major League Baseball (MLB) team Tampa Bay Rays.

A committee met at Hillsborough College to publicly review the applications before announcing a decision.

In addition to its experience in building professional stadiums, AECOM Hunt has an extensive track record with the Rays and the region.

That includes building Tropicana Field and replacing the St. Petersburg ballpark’s roof after it was destroyed by Hurricane Milton.

For their new Forever Home ballpark, the Rays have specified a fixed-roof, climate-controlled ballpark of about 1.3 million gross square feet and plans call for about 28,000 seats with “special event capacity expandability”.
 
The other stadium specifics in the Request for Qualifications document include:

• The three primary seating levels (main, mezzanine, upper) with general, premium and group areas;
• The premium areas will feature enhanced seating and access to the club lounges, suites, the bars, and the dining areas;
• The group areas will include small seating groupings such as living room Boxes or theater seating;
• A number of “standing room only” tickets are also expected to be made available;
• About 350,000 to 450,000 square feet will be dedicated to the concourses and circulation;
• About 60,000 to 100,000 square feet will go to concessions, kitchens and the team stores;
• About 70,000 to 100,000 square feet will be used for the locker rooms, the clubhouses and the training areas; and
• There will be a media center with a Press Box, broadcast booths and TV truck facilities.

 
The iconic Rays aquarium – now found in the center field at the Tropicana Field – is also part of the plan.

The stadium is slated to go on about 130 acres now used by the Hillsborough College’s Dale Mabry campus in Tampa’s Drew Park neighborhood.

WUSF further stated that AECOM Hunt and Turner have teamed up repeatedly as joint-venture construction managers on major stadiums and arenas over the past two decades.

AECOM Hunt’s stadium portfolio also includes Raymond James Stadium, SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles and Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

The Rays put out the contractor request before a final agreement on nearly $1 million in public financing was approved by the Tampa City Council and Hillsborough County Commission. The Rays have committed to spending more than $1.2 billion on stadium construction.

The stadium will be built under a “construction manager at risk” model, in which the builder agrees to a “guaranteed maximum price.” By locking in a cost ceiling, the contract effectively shifts the financial risk of budget overruns away from taxpayers and the team and places it on the construction firm.

The construction manager at risk will oversee the “construction, commissioning and close-out of the project,” according to the request for qualifications.

Other requests for qualifications were submitted by Mortenson and Beck, Gilbane and Barton Malow, and H.J. Russell.

Rays CEO Ken Babby said in statement, “We appreciate all of the firms that participated in the CMAR public procurement process for the new Rays Forever Home. This is the next step in the proposed ballpark effort, and we look forward to entering into an agreement with AECOM/Hunt.”

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