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New stadium talks to ramp up between city, Tampa Bay Rays

 
Tampa Bay Rays president Matt Silverman
Tampa Bay Rays president Matt Silverman
Published Sept. 30, 2014

ST. PETERSBURG — Now that the Tampa Bay Rays have wrapped up their season, talks between the city and the team should become more substantive, Mayor Rick Kriseman's chief of staff, Kevin King, said Monday.

Kriseman and Rays president Matt Silverman met for about an hour Friday afternoon at Tropicana Field, the latest in a series of "good" meetings that haven't yielded any concrete steps toward resolving the long-running saga of finding a new stadium site for the Major League Baseball team that finished a losing campaign Sunday with (depending on how you tally the numbers) MLB's lowest attendance.

"Now that the season's over, they can have more meetings — and more productive meetings," King said.

Another meeting between Kriseman and Silverman is being scheduled and should take place soon, King said.

City officials say they remain hopeful that a deal can be reached by year's end. The Rays want a deal that would allow them to look at sites in Tampa and Hillsborough County.