Good morning! Race week is officially here — and for once, the weather gods are cooperating. After weeks of frost warnings and "should I wear a hoodie or a light jacket?" confusion, we're hitting 66 today and climbing to the mid-to-high 70s by the weekend, right as 200,000 people descend on downtown for the Grand Prix. Turns out St. Pete was just saving its best weather for company. Can't blame her. Let's get into the news.

IIt's official — and it happened fast. Governor DeSantis and the full Florida Cabinet voted unanimously Tuesday to approve the transfer of 22 acres of state-owned land at Hillsborough Community College's Dale Mabry campus to Hillsborough County, clearing the single biggest bureaucratic hurdle standing between the Tampa Bay Rays and their new stadium.

The proposed ballpark carries a price tag of $2 to $2.3 billion, with the Rays committing to cover more than 50% of costs. The rest falls to Tampa and Hillsborough County — a negotiation that's very much still ongoing. The stadium would seat 31,000 fans under a transparent dome and is targeting a 2029 opening, which means the clock is already ticking. The state attached a hard condition: if the Rays don't break ground within five years, the land reverts back to state ownership.

DeSantis, who grew up in Dunedin and has been openly supportive of keeping MLB in the Tampa Bay area, brushed off concerns about the land's value, pointing out it's "mostly parking lots." The full Cabinet — Attorney General Ashley Moody, Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, and Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson — voted in lockstep. According to WUSF, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred was also in the room and publicly endorsed the plan.

For St. Pete, this is the final chapter of a long, complicated relationship. The team that played at the Trop for decades — and was supposed to anchor the Gas Plant District redevelopment — is building its future across the bay. Florida Politics has more on the Cabinet vote details.

Bottom line: The state just handed Tampa a fast lane to build the Rays' new home — 22 acres of land, a 5-year clock, and a price tag nobody's fully figured out yet. For St. Pete, it's official: the team that put us on the baseball map is building its future across the bay. That one's going to sting for a while.

Tuesday night was an emotional one at Pinellas County School Board headquarters. The board was set to vote on closing Cross Bayou Elementary and Disston Academy, merging Bay Point Elementary and Middle into a K-8 school, and converting Oldsmar Elementary to a K-8 as well. The meeting started at 5 p.m. and drew large, impassioned crowds.

This has been building for months. The district has a brutal math problem: 35,000 more seats than enrolled students, with some buildings operating at shockingly low capacity — Disston Academy at roughly 17%, Bay Point Elementary at 47%, Bay Point Middle at 35%. Add in millions in deferred maintenance and the state's aggressive push to allow "Schools of Hope" charter operators to move into underused public school space, and the district felt backed into a corner.

The hardest pill for families: both Cross Bayou and Disston house specialized programs. Cross Bayou serves students who are deaf or hard of hearing. At a prior meeting, one student signed through an interpreter: "I love this school so much… I want this school to stay open. It needs to stay open." The district insists those programs will move to Walsingham Oaks K-8 — but parents pushed back hard on what uprooting kids with special needs really means in practice.

The superintendent's position has been clear: no staff will lose their jobs, and the moves are fiscally necessary. Bay News 9 covered the pre-vote context and WFLA has the latest.

Bottom line: Two schools will likely close at the end of this school year. It's a financial reality check for a district losing students year over year — but for families at Cross Bayou and Disston, it's devastating. The district is promising a smooth transition. We'll see how smooth it actually is.

Buried a little under the Rays drama: St. Petersburg City Council voted unanimously last week to purchase a long-disputed stretch of CSX railroad tracks running through the heart of downtown, paving the way (literally) for the Booker Creek Trail extension. This trail will eventually link the Historic Gas Plant District to the Pinellas Trail at 5th Avenue North — and someday, potentially all the way to Booker Creek Park in North Kenwood.

The price tag? $7 million — which sounds like a lot until you learn that CSX originally wanted $87.9 million for the same land. City negotiators got them down to $7 million. Even better: only about $1.2 million is coming from the city. The rest is being covered by private stakeholders — Mark Ferguson (the owner of Ferg's Sports Bar, whose property the tracks literally bisected) is kicking in $4 million, and Ellison Development is contributing $2 million. The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land helped broker the deal.

The saga started back in 2019 when CSX tried to convert the tracks. Ferguson sued over land easements and was awarded $12.9 million in the largest private judgment in rails-to-trails history. The city sued CSX for control of the trail in 2020. Courts ordered them to negotiate. Took until now to finally close. Council Member Corey Givens Jr. — whose great-great-grandfather laid rail in this very area — called it a deeply personal moment. "As I walk this railroad, I feel like I'm walking the steps of my own history." Power Broker Magazine has the full breakdown and St. Pete Catalyst covers the vote.

Bottom line: After six years of lawsuits, negotiations, and a $12.9 million courtroom win, downtown St. Pete is getting a trail that will connect south St. Pete neighborhoods, the Gas Plant District, and the broader Pinellas trail system. An absolute win — and a classic example of how long "simple" things take in this city.

⚡ Lightning are back — after 11 players represented their countries in the Milan Winter Olympics, the Bolts return to the ice tonight hosting the Toronto Maple Leafs at 7:30 p.m. at Benchmark International Arena. It's been three weeks. Tampa hockey fans are ready.

⚾ Spring Training is underway — the Rays opened Grapefruit League play this week at Charlotte Sports Park in Port Charlotte. It may be the last spring before everything changes.

🌡️ Weather alert for the weekend — temps will be in the mid-to-high 70s through the Grand Prix weekend. Good news if you bought race tickets. No frost warnings in sight for a change.

🔪 Pinellas Park stabbing — police are investigating a stabbing that occurred Tuesday evening in Pinellas Park. One person was transported to the hospital with serious injuries. Investigation is ongoing; no suspect announced as of this morning.

🏎️ Race week starts Thursday — Party in the Park kicks off February 27 at 4 p.m. downtown — and it's free. That's your easiest entry point into Grand Prix weekend before the full crowds descend. NASCAR Craftsman Trucks race Saturday, IndyCar Sunday.

🏒 Lightning vs. Toronto Maple Leafs — 7:30 p.m. at Benchmark International Arena, Tampa. First game back from the Olympic break. Grab tickets or find a good bar — downtown Tampa will be buzzing.

🍷 Trivia Night at Green Bench Brewing — 7 p.m. at Green Bench Brewing Co., 1133 Baum Ave N. Weekly pub trivia with craft beer. Teams of up to 6, free to play.

🔥 Hot Glass Demonstration at Morean Arts Center — 1 p.m. at the Hot Shop, 719 Central Ave. Watch glassblowers at work in a live demo. Tickets required; check the Morean website for availability.

We couldn't dig up anything that happened specifically on February 25 in St. Pete history — if you know of something, hit reply and let us know!

In the meantime, here's something that happened in February 1985 that's especially fitting as race week kicks off: motorsports racing came to the streets of downtown St. Petersburg for the very first time. The inaugural St. Petersburg Grand Prix drew around 60,000 spectators to the waterfront, featuring Trans-Am and Can-Am cars thundering past what was then a fairly overlooked downtown core. Willy T. Ribbs won the first Trans-Am race; Conway Twitty and Waylon Jennings played the after-race concert. (No notes. Absolutely correct vibe.)

The race organizers actually lost $500,000 on that first event and needed city handouts to keep future events alive. Forty-one years later, the race pumps an estimated $60+ million into the local economy annually and draws some of the best drivers in the world. Not bad for a gamble that started in the red.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ AMAZING!!!
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Meh, do better
⭐️ You didn't bring the heat