The Rays’ Gas Plant development agreement is ready. Here’s what it says.

St. Petersburg City Council members received key documents Thursday that detail how about 65 acres around Tropicana Field would transform into the Historic Gas Plant District, a sweeping project that would surround a new ballpark for the Tampa Bay Rays with residences, an African American history museum, stores, restaurants, hotels and office space.

Now it’s their turn to weigh in.

The development agreement, the central document among eight released by the city late Thursday afternoon, gives council members and the public the most substantive vision to date from the Rays and their partner Hines after months of negotiations with Mayor Ken Welch’s administration. It calls for the creation of the Historic Gas Plant District, an homage to the former Black community that was razed for redevelopment but later became a sea of parking lots around Tropicana Field.

Council member Lisset Hanewicz has been waiting to review the more finalized documents.

“It’ll be interesting to see how in-depth we can cover this material,” she said, before a planned workshop May 9.

The development agreement and other legally binding documents would go before the City Council and the Pinellas County Commission for a vote in June or July, according to a timeline released alongside the agreement. Construction would not begin until the first quarter of 2025. Though the Rays have said they need to break ground by November to have a ballpark ready for Opening Day 2028, the updated timeline says the stadium could be ready on time.

The first phase would include 1,500 residential units, 500 hotel rooms, a new home for the Woodson African American Museum of Florida, 100,000 square feet of entertainment space and 60,000 square feet of conference, ballroom and meeting space. It does not give a timeline for construction on that phase. Three more phases, including more homes, hotel rooms, offices and conference space, would follow over the next 25 years.

The release of the 184-page agreement comes two weeks before the council meets to discuss the redevelopment for just the second time since a tentative deal was announced with much fanfare in September.

The new agreement fills in the blanks on how many acres would be sold to the Rays and Hines below appraised value and what the city would get in return for that discount along with its commitment of $130 million toward the public infrastructure, such as roads and sewers. It outlines the team’s and the developer’s promises on affordable housing, employing disadvantaged workers, investing in minority-owned businesses and the funding of the museum — and the penalties they face if they fail to deliver.

Welch has made affordable housing a key plank in the deal. The latest version includes 50 more affordable housing units than the team and the developer had proposed in the broad terms released in September for families earning 80% of the area median income. That’s a total of 1,250 affordable and workforce housing units on- and off-site.

But the agreement doesn’t include many of the recommendations made by the Community Benefits Advisory Council, a nine-member group selected by city officials to assess what the public gets in return for city-subsidized projects.

The group focused on affordable housing, voting unanimously that the Rays and Hines should face higher penalties for failing to start construction by certain dates. It recommended raising penalties from $25,000 per unit to $150,000 for on-site units and $175,000 for off-site units, while also accounting for inflation. And it suggested moving up the first phase of housing construction for 300 affordable workforce units to 2028 instead of 2030.

The development agreement released Thursday outlines a $25,000 penalty if the Rays and Hines fall behind on the first phase of 300 units, which is still slated for 2030. It would increase to $50,000 per unit for phases set for 2037 and 2042, and $75,000 for the last batch of 350 units set to be under construction by 2047. The only units that would start construction on an accelerated timeline would be 100 units for seniors ages 55 and up, by 2028. Those units would be part of the 600 units required to be built on-site.

The city would retain ownership of four parcels within the Gas Plant district that would be leased and rent-restricted for standalone affordable housing for 99 years. Previous drafts of the agreement, obtained by the Tampa Bay Times through public records requests, called for three such parcels. All other affordable and workforce housing units would only be rent-restricted for 30 years.

The Rays and Hines are offering a $50 million package with incentives: $15 million would go toward the city’s affordable housing initiatives, $10 million toward the new home for the Woodson museum by July 2025, and the rest including investments toward minority business development and workforce training.

The advisory council recommended that $5 million of the $15 million for affordable housing be put into a community trust with some other money set aside for rental assistance. None of that is included in the agreement.

The agreement calls for 15% of all hours of construction work to be done by disadvantaged workers, which by the city’s definition includes veterans, people with criminal records and those without a GED or high school diploma. An equal amount of work would go to apprentices. And it would require that 10% of all transactions in the development involve certified minority businesses. Those requirements all align with recommendations by the advisory group.

The agreement has an added penalty that wasn’t previously discussed: For every 10 years the Rays and Hines don’t reach the minority business goal, they would have to pay $850,000 toward community benefits, such as supporting minority businesses. If that goal of 10% is not met by the end of the 30-year term, they would face a fine of $1.675 million.

Another provision requires one day care, preschool or other child care facility to be finished by the end of 2035.

Financial terms spelled out in the agreement do not appear to be subject to changes in inflation. The Rays and Hines would pay $105,267,000 — $1,000 less than the original agreed-upon price ― over four phases. However, they must purchase at least $50.4 million worth of land in the first 12 years, by 2036.

The agreement released Thursday contains multiple mentions of an “excusable development delay,” defined as delays on the behalf of the government, a natural disaster, “unforeseen site conditions” or that are “directly caused by a decline in economic or development stability.”

In addition to the May 9 discussion on the broader development proposal, the City Council is scheduled to meet again on May 23 to discuss the stadium deal itself, which comes with about a dozen more documents that need approval from the council and the Pinellas County Commission.