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Mayor sees solution for pollution at Tropicana Field site

 
Published Jan. 12, 2015

ST. PETERSBURG — A red herring or potential environmental mess?

City officials scoff at suggestions that Tropicana Field is too polluted to redevelop if the Tampa Bay Rays leave.

State environmental regulators are prepared to declare the site ready to build on again.

But others, including former mayoral candidate Kathleen Ford, say environmental hazards from a gas plant that once stood on the site are still of concern.

She voiced her worries at a contentious meeting last month that ended with the City Council defeating a proposed agreement to let the team look for new stadium sites in Tampa.

Mayor Rick Kriseman said Ford and others have seized on environmental concerns as a way to muddy the waters on a Rays agreement, which he says is still possible.

"They're just trying to throw up a red herring. That's not really an issue. I don't see that as anything that would prevent the development from moving forward," Kriseman last week.

The city is preparing to ask the state Department of Environmental Protection to issue a deed restriction allowing new construction on the 85-acre site within the next few months.

That would effectively close the state's environmental book on a 5-acre parcel on the southwest corner of the eastern parking lot that has trace pollution from coal tar poxy leftover from when the gas plant occupied the land between 1914 and 1962. The plant turned coal into gas.

Ford, a lawyer who lost to Kriseman in the first round of the 2013 election, isn't convinced that the site is safe. She also represented the city in a 1992 lawsuit about the contamination.

"It was a pretty dirty site. It's still of concern and we don't have all the answers" said Ford.

She cautioned that the pollution might restrict development options.

"Who is going to build around a dump site?" she asked.

But DEP and city officials say the deed restriction only applies to a tiny portion of the site. A building could be placed on the polluted area or it could remain a parking lot.

The restriction will make the property more attractive to developers, said city Public Works Administrator Mike Connors.

"It removes any and all question marks about what would have to be done. It just crystallizes or simplifies what a redeveloper may be subject to," he said.

The city hasn't prepared a cost estimate for getting rid of the pollution because it isn't clear that any developer would want to remove the parking lot, Connors said.

The state has worked with the city for the past six months to wrap up the case and is waiting for the city to formally submit its request before making a decision, said Ana Gibbs, a DEP spokeswoman.

"We look forward to continuing to work with the city to close this site," she wrote in an email.

Ford said there shouldn't be any rush to redevelop the site. The land will become only more valuable. A better option, she said, would be to let the site lay fallow in a land bank.

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"The highest and better use improves the longer we wait," she said.

Contact Charlie Frago at cfrago@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8459. Follow @CharlieFrago