Real estate experts mixed on viability of Rays stadium in Carillon

Experts have expressed mixed views about whether a new Tampa Bay Rays baseball stadium in the Carillon area is viable.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, some commercial real estate brokers and lenders are intrigued by the possibility, while others wonder whether it could attract enough investment.

"There's a lot of skepticism that people would go there, a lot of skepticism that it would get funded, and a lot of skepticism that it would be successful," Darron Kattan, a managing director at the Tampa commercial real estate firm Franklin Street, told the Times.

Part of the problem is the Rays have struggled to attract fans at Tropicana Field in downtown St. Petersburg, and "real estate developers would be very cautious about putting their money out there, simply because it's unproven," Kattan told the Times.

A firm called CityScape, led by developer Darryl LeClair, has proposed building a 35,000-seat ballpark in the Carillon, a mid-county office-park location close to the Howard Frankland Bridge. CityScape's plan calls for offices, retail space and apartments surrounding the stadium's outer plaza and a hotel on the first-base line.

Others in the real estate industry expressed optimism about the project in the Times story.

"Investment folks are pretty high on the idea that this could happen," Lee Arnold, the CEO of commercial brokerage Colliers International Tampa Bay, told the Times.

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