An Empty Suncoast Dome : It’s a $138-Million Ediface Hoping to Land a Sporting Tenant

If you build it, will they come?

Maybe.

The people of Tampa-St. Petersburg certainly thought so when they approved $138 million--up from the original estimate of $85 million--in public financing for the construction of the Suncoast Dome, a stadium designed specifically to house a major league baseball team.

Now, Florida finally finds out if they really will come.

On Tuesday, baseball’s owners decide whether to permit Bob Lurie to sell the San Francisco Giants to a Tampa-St. Petersburg group for $115 million or force him to accept $100 million from a group that wants to keep the Giants in California.

Now why would they make Lurie, a longtime, loyal member of their fraternity, take $15 million less--no small sum--than he could get for his team elsewhere? That’s a long story, full of intriguing Machiavellian twists and turns, involving, among other things, politics and power and including nasty words like antitrust.

Suffice to say if the Giants really do move, the dome will be their home, occupied at last by a fulltime tenant instead of waiting for some rock concert or truck race to wander down Interstate 275 and settle in for a night or two. So far, the place has managed to avoid booking tractor pulls, the traditional date-filler of many otherwise empty arenas.

In 2 1/2 years, the building has hosted 83 events and 134 performances. “Every event we do makes money, but on an annual basis, no, the building does not make money,” said Jerry Oliver, general manager of the Dome. “Our city subsidy was $1.2 million this year.”

Still, the Dome is not exactly a white elephant. “Since we’ve opened, 1.5 million people have gone through the building,” Oliver said. “We’ve had ticket sales of $17 million and an economic impact on the community of $34 million.”

If the Giants move is approved, the first thing on the Dome’s shopping list will be an artificial surface. Right now, the floor is bare concrete. The reasoning is that turf is expensive and without a team, it would be difficult to justify the additional investment.

Construction of the Dome began Jan. 5, 1987, with the building designed by the same architects who laid out the blueprints for Royals Stadium in Kansas City. In its baseball configuration, the dimensions would be ideal--410 feet to straightaway center field, 340 feet down the foul lines and 385 feet in the power alleys. The idea was to build a state-of-the-art facility, a place so perfect for baseball that baseball could not ignore it.

That’s what they thought.

The theory flew in the face of advice by then-commissioner Peter Ueberroth, who warned interested municipalities that baseball’s expansion plans would not be swayed by the little detail of having a handsome, new ballpark in place. And just to prove it, when it came time to award new franchises, baseball blithely ignored the 43,000-seat Suncoast Dome, settling instead in football stadiums at Miami and Denver.

It was a substantial slap in the face, but Tampa simply turned the other cheek and continued pursuing baseball.

If you build a stadium for baseball and there is no baseball, what do you put in it? The Dome’s Grand Opening Gala included marching bands, 5,000 dancers and a Kenny Rogers concert. Since then, the place has hosted among other things NHL exhibition games with a temporary ice surface, NBA exhibitions, college basketball, Davis Cup tennis and Arena League football, with a temporary turf.

It is developing a lucky charm reputation. The Pittsburgh Penguins played an exhibition there and went on to win the NHL Stanley Cup. The Chicago Bulls played an exhibition there and won the NBA Championship. The U.S. hosted the Davis Cup there and won the tennis trophy.

After last week’s sprint car races, one of the local writers said the Dome has done every event except the one it was built for.

“We are convinced major league baseball will happen,” Oliver said.

On Tuesday? Maybe.