When it comes to the Rays’ search for a stadium location in Tampa, we assume everything is still on the table, but the rumors often seem to focus on the area between the Courtney Campbell Causeway and Raymond James Stadium. The heart of this area is the business/residential district known as Westshore.
We’ve been writing about the Westshore* corridor’s potential as a venue for Rays baseball for more than a decade – here are examples from 2017, 2016 and 2014 – and it’s easy to see why.
The neighborhood is literally the center of Tampa Bay, at the intersection of I-275, Dale Mabry Highway and the Veterans Expressway, bringing together routes from St. Petersburg, Clearwater and neighborhoods north and east of Tampa itself, as well as Tampa’s major east-west corridors, Boy Scout Boulevard and Kennedy Boulevard. The main barrier to finding a stadium in Westshore has always been finding a large enough location, but now it appears that Westshore Plaza, a 53.3-acre shopping center, is not only for sale but also failing to find a buyer.
It’s probably not surprising that the mall is on the market. Traditional indoor malls across the country are failingand Westshore has the further disadvantage of being only 2.5 miles from the newer, more luxurious International Plaza.**
The mall’s owners had apparently been trying to redevelop the area and proposed a project they ‘West Bank 54,” which was approved by the City Council in 2024. Times reporter Rebecca Liebson wrote in March 2024 that the site owners were hoping for more vertical development (e.g., construction of office or residential towers) in the mall, which is also home to a popular local AMC movie theater, a busy Chick-fil-a, and a Macy’s that my mother-in-law would dearly miss if the mall were torn down. The fact that the site came on the market a year later indicates that the owners do not intend to take on the redevelopment themselves.
All of this would be typical redevelopment fodder for the ever-growing Tampa Bay area, but the recent article from the Tampa Bay Times 10 Tampa Bay Real Estate Developments to Watch in 2026 revealed that Westshore 54 has failed to find a buyer after ten months on the market:
The tampa city council passed a redevelopment plan by 2024, that would pave the way for a sprawling mixed-use district with shops, apartments, offices and even medical facilities to replace the WestShore Plaza shopping center.
WestShore Plaza’s owner, Washington Prime Group, put the 52-acre property up for sale in February.
There are no takers so far. But if someone closes the building next year, it could be the beginning of the end for the nearly 60-year-old shopping center.
[Rebecca Liebson, Tampa Bay Times]
We continue to believe that Westshore is very suitable for a stadium and associated development. It is adjacent to the Tampa International Airport and has a city-designated business development district. A stadium in the area would be close to potential corporate sponsors and could gain access to some of the office’s parking capacity, which is likely to be empty in the evenings and on weekends when most games are played.
And to sweeten the pot, even if it’s just a distant gleam in the eye, Tampa International Airport’s master plans in recent years have included ideas for a multi-modal transportation hub that could even include an expansion of the current Automated People Mover that connects the main terminal to long-term parking and the car rental facility. We’re not saying that this kind of rail access is very likely, but IF progress were to be made in public transport in the coming years, then connections to and through the Westshore area are probably among the most likely places to find this.
We’ve written that the current ownership group is looking for a 100-acre site, with the HCC campus on Dale Mabry as the preferred site. But building there would mean co-location with or relocation of a busy community college, and also raises questions about the viability of a stadium with the adjacent Yankee complex (and the political difficulties of getting the Yankees to move).
Read more: The leading candidate for a new Rays stadium: HCC Dale Mabry
WestShore Plaza is a slow-moving private sale, and hardly anyone is going to cry about the demolition of a forgettable cookie-cutter mall complex (sorry mom), so in some ways this site might be easier to redevelop. If desired, a new complex could even include a broader entertainment offering, such as a cinema, within the expected mix of restaurants and shops, but leave the traditional department stores to International Plaza.
However, fifty-three hectares is not 100 hectares. Would the new Rays ownership group be willing to consider a smaller but extremely well-positioned location?
*It is interesting to note that the usage of “West Shore” and “Westshore” is largely interchangeable. On street signs it is two words, while the neighborhood is often described as one word. Maps use Kennedy Boulevard as the dividing line between North and South for the Westshore neighborhood, resulting in ‘North Westshore Boulevard’ and ‘South West Shore Boulevard’. To add to the confusion, the WestShore Plaza shopping center notably combined the two words but kept the capitalization. Since all of the areas in the area that have historically been considered for a new stadium are all north of Kennedy Blvd, we have consistently used the one-word name.
**Only one of the shopping centers on Westshore Boulevard has a Blind Tiger; that’s where you’ll find me.
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