When it comes to the Rays search for a stadium site, we assume everything is still on the table, but the rumors often seem to center 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 have been writing about the potential of the Westshore* corridor as a site for Rays baseball for more than a decade — here are examples from 2017, 2016, and 2014 — and it’s easy to understand why. The neighborhood is quite literally the center of Tampa Bay, at the intersection of I-275, Dale Mabry Highway, and the Veterans Expressway, bringing together pathways from St. Petersburg, Clearwater, and neighborhoods north and east of Tampa proper, as well as key Tampa east-west corridors of Boy Scout Boulevard and Kennedy Boulevard.The main barrier to locating a stadium in Westshore has always been finding a large site. But now it turns out that Westshore Plaza, a 53.3 acre shopping mall, is up for sale.
It’s probably not surprising that the mall is on the market. Traditional indoor malls all over the country are failing, and Westshore has the further disadvantage of sitting just 2.5 miles from the newer, fancier International Plaza…