In a warming world, is a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium ready for the future?

If all goes according to plan, construction workers 30 years from now will be putting the finishing touches on the last buildings in an 86-acre redevelopment project that will transform St. Petersburg.

By then, Florida’s Sunshine City, surrounded by water on three sides, will exist in a transformed world: The seas around St. Petersburg could be up to 2 feet higher. Residents could endure five more days of extreme heat and eight more days of near-record rainfall each year.

But it wasn’t until the last stages of negotiations over a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium and surrounding Historic Gas Plant District redevelopment that officials addressed how environmentally responsible the $6.5 billion project would be. When they finally did, they spoke of lofty goals that are far from guaranteed.

For example: A member of the architectural team said the stadium could generate more solar energy than any other ballpark in Major League Baseball. But the contract documents only say the company will “develop plans” to generate renewable energy.

Pinellas County commissioners are scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to commit $312.5 million in tourist tax dollars toward stadium construction, the final hurdle remaining for the project.

The Suncoast Sierra Club chided St. Petersburg council members following their 5-3 approval earlier this month.

“The City could have been a leader in securing a contractual commitment to building one of the world’s leading sustainable and resilient venues … but did not,” the group said in an email.

The contract does spell out requirements for things like restoring and protecting a stretch of Booker Creek that flows past the stadium, building to withstand a Category 4 hurricane and guaranteeing electric vehicle chargers. And some environmental groups have expressed support for aspects of the plan.

“We want to use the best available technology for the stadium and for each phase going forward for the other 60 acres,” St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch said. Asked how that would be measured, Welch pointed to a last-minute change by the City Council to have developers implement sustainability standards throughout the project.

Welch has also noted the developer’s environmental awards for other projects.

Adapting to climate change

So how prepared is the stadium design for the effects of climate change?

The good news: The majority of downtown St. Petersburg is in a non-evacuation zone for hurricanes. That means the ground below the Trop is high and dry, safe from more than two feet of projected sea-level rise by 2050, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s “high” estimate.

But heat, the deadliest weather-related hazard, will prove a much bigger threat as yearly temperatures climb.

Climate experts say it’s likely global temperature rise will reach a major milestone by 2040: an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.

In St. Petersburg, that means the number of days where temperatures exceed 95 degrees Fahrenheit would double, according to the Fifth U.S. National Climate Assessment.

Mohit Mehta, the global head of sustainability at Populous, the architectural firm designing the new Trop, said developers are factoring in climate. He said there are plans for at least 1.2 million gallons of rainwater storage which would be used for cooling towers “that help dissipate the heat” and for landscaping. None of that is spelled out in the development agreements.

The new stadium, like the current one, will be fully air-conditioned — a must to protect fans from heat illness, but also a sustainability challenge. It will take a massive amount of energy to cool a space for 30,000 spectators. That demand raises questions about how the project can avoid contributing to climate change by guzzling electricity and increasing carbon emissions in the process.

In the contract, the team says it will conduct analyses to minimize the stadium’s energy use and greenhouse gas emissions during the design phase.

Minutes before the City Council’s final vote, officials also added contract language that required developers to implement “market appropriate sustainability standards” for the entire development. It says developers will make “good faith, commercially reasonable efforts” to build a stadium that achieves a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification, known as LEED, but does not require the stadium to achieve that distinction.

Buildings can get various tiers of the label — certified, silver, gold or platinum — that signal they have followed practices like adding energy-efficient air conditioning systems, electric vehicle chargers or waterless urinals. That program, created in the 1990s, is largely considered to have revolutionized the building industry, bringing environmentalism into the construction mainstream and giving it the prestige of a plaque that developers prize.

Having a development of this size certified would be “huge,” said Bahar Armaghani, director of the Sustainability and the Built Environment program at the University of Florida.

“It will have a tremendous impact and benefit for the community in the city and, to be honest, even in the state of Florida,” she said.

Mehta and Rays president Matt Silverman have said they expect the stadium to approach or meet silver certification standards. But the Rays’ other president, Brian Auld, said it’s best to have flexibility for the stadium’s unique situation.

Florida State University professor Timothy Kellison, who wrote a book about stadiums and environmental justice, told the Times the team could do better. He points to Florida sports venues that have achieved gold status, a higher standard than the Rays’ proposal: the Miami Marlins’ LoanDepot Park, the Miami Dolphins’ Hard Rock Stadium and the Orlando Magic’s Amway Center.

Whether the certification goes far enough is also a subject of debate. The program has faced criticism in recent years, including from one of the men who pioneered it: a Kansas City architect named Bob Berkebile.

“The certification has become: Your building is doing a little less damage to the environment than everyone else’s,” Berkebile told the news website Bloomberg in 2018. “But that means you’re still having a negative impact. I think that’s a failure.”

John Scofield, a physics professor at Oberlin College, has reached a similar conclusion. He found that for years, there was no difference in a building’s power use whether they were certified or not. His most recent study, which looked at 2016 data for thousands of office buildings, found that certified buildings used about 7% less source energy than buildings that did not have the certification.

“It’s a tiny pittance of a savings,” he said. Given those findings, the promises to get the Trop development certified “would just not impress me as environmentally conscious,” Scofield added.

Reviving a neglected creek

Restoring Booker Creek is described in developers’ plans as a defining focal point for the Historic Gas Plant District.

Florida environmental regulators consider the creek, just shy of two miles long, to be an “impaired” stream in need of restoration. Trash often litters the banks of the roughly 2,000-foot stretch that borders the stadium. Water dribbles on dry days. It’s hard to even see the creek from the web of walkways entering the ballpark.

The new vision for the waterway, according to agreement documents, bolsters habitat for Florida wildlife while improving water quality, curbing downstream flooding and capturing trash flowing along the creek.

A walkable pathway would loop roughly three-quarters of a mile around the restored creek. Visitors could sit waterside on stepped seating akin to the Chicago Riverwalk or in a shaded pavilion, according to Rob Hutcheson, the principal for EDSA, the landscape architecture firm leading the restoration project.

In St. Petersburg, annual rainfall and extreme weather are expected to increase as the globe warms and the atmosphere traps more moisture. How are project developers preparing for that increased rainfall?

For one, the creek drops from 10 to 15 feet in elevation along the Trop property. The southern end, sitting at the lowest point and bordering the stadium, is most at risk for flooding. That’s where developers have targeted a new stormwater garden, or an ecological park that functions “like a sponge,” Hutcheson said.

To help ease flood risk, EDSA has considered incorporating native, water-friendly species like bald cypress trees.

One of the region’s most prominent environmental nonprofits, Tampa Bay Watch, supports the idea of a restored Booker Creek. Members found three otters just outside of the stadium when they walked the creek earlier this spring. CEO Dwayne Virgint said he was encouraged by the Rays’ plans to add native plants and tree canopies for shade.

“Based on their approach, we are confident that the Rays’ organization recognizes the importance of Booker Creek and its sustainability in the design and development process,” Virgint wrote in a letter to St. Petersburg City Council. “They are asking critical questions and seeking the best methods to preserve and feature Booker Creek, as a cultural, environmental and educational asset.”

After expressing their dismay with the City Council’s vote, Suncoast Sierra Club members vowed to hold the city accountable.

“We don’t need empty promises or greenwash, rather, we need action,” they signed off.