TAMPA, Fla. — Ken Hagan laid back in his office chair Friday — alone, emotional, his blue Tampa Bay Rays polo visible below his blazer — and attempted to absorb it all. He was celebrating, but cautiously. Pumped, yet peaceful.

Minutes earlier, the Hillsborough County Commission chairperson had joined his fellow board members in heeding the call to action he has spent nearly two decades championing. The county’s chambers erupted in applause after Hillsborough approved the Tampa Bay Rays’ $2.3 billion stadium proposal, 5-2, a day after the city had blessed the project.

Hagan, however, had something left to say.

“I want to thank the person who is responsible for me being in this seat and responsible for my love of baseball,” he said, seated at the dais he has served from since 2002.

“Dad, we did it.”

The moments after adjournment, Hagan said, felt like election night; a frenzy that favored his efforts. In his county office, he was surrounded by past successes. Newspaper clippings and pictures that captured campaign celebrations. Framed jerseys with his last name on them, fitting decor for a fervent advocate of sports.

Friday’s vote might have been harder to achieve than re-election, and must have felt better than watching the Bucs win the Super Bowl. The decades-long stadium saga Hagan spent 16 years trying to solve is now all but settled.

“It’s the gambit of emotions,” he told the Tampa Bay Times. “It’s surreal.”

The congratulations arrived in a flurry. His daughter told him she watched the entire meeting from the University of Florida. His son was in the audience. Rays fans rejoiced on social media, and his friends made sure he was given credit. And of course, there was a text from his 82-year-old father.

“Good job, son. I’m proud of you,” Hagan read from his phone. “You put me in tears. Never doubted it. I knew you would get it done.”

“Man,” he said after reading the text. “It brought tears to my eyes.”

Hagan called Friday “a great day for the future of Tampa and Hillsborough County.” It went about as well as he could have hoped.

Chris Boles, Harry Cohen, Christine Miller and Gwen Myers, all of whom had backed a nonbinding agreement with the Rays in May but had not promised they would support the project when it mattered most, joined Hagan in approving the stadium proposal.

There had been uncertainty surrounding whether the deal had enough votes on the commission. Last week, Boles and Miller both cast doubt on the project and questioned the city’s contribution. Boles went as far as to say he would “absolutely” vote down a future deal.

“I come from Plant City, where you don’t buy the first strawberry in the row,” Miller said Friday. “And District 4 did not buy the first stadium deal, either.”

Boles raised a variety of concerns and asked about the state’s sudden and secretive shutdown of Hillsborough County’s only juvenile detention center. That closure, the Times reported Thursday, is connected to the proposed stadium and surrounding development.

He used Friday’s meeting to call out the Rays’ minimum investment in the Community Benefits Agreement. That part of the deal has yet to be detailed. Lynn Hurtak tried to have a commitment of at least $75 million from the team added to the deal during Tampa’s City Council vote on Thursday, but no minimum valuation was added. Hagan suggested $50 million before Boles upped the ante to $60 million.

After the meeting, Boles told the Times that while he was not thrilled with the deal, he saw supporting it as an opportunity to make it better.

Hagan framed Friday’s vote as a chance to make history. So, too, did the Rays. Patrick Zalupski, the team’s managing partner, said in a statement that the vote “represents an extraordinary milestone.”

“Forever,” he said, “starts now.”

In an impassioned statement, Cohen concurred.

“We’ve shown that we can win championships in this community,” he said. “And when we do, and the network television cameras pan over Hillsborough County and they look out over the sun setting over the bay, and a worldwide television audience sees this community. You know what they’re going to say to themselves?

“ ‘That’s the place I want to be.’ ”

Donna Cameron Cepeda and Joshua Wostal, who voted against the deal, saw it differently.

“This is a very irresponsible use of taxpayer dollars,” said Cameron Cepeda, who recently lost her primary reelection to a candidate who received a $5,000 donation from the Rays. Wostal called the deal “an albatross.”

Hillsborough’s $796 million contribution is the same as it was when commissioners voted 5-2 to approve the nonbinding stadium agreement in May. It’s split primarily between $360 million from the Community Investment Tax, which would be paid in four installments of $90 million, and $303 million from the county’s Tourist Development Tax. Most of the tourism tax money would be bonded, which is similar to paying a mortgage on a house.

On Friday, Tom Fesler, Hillsborough’s chief financial administrator, said the tourist tax development commitment rises to $569 million with interest on bonds, a figure which is not calculated into the $796 million county contribution.

Hillsborough’s portion includes $103 million from the main county account that is largely supported by property taxes and pays for police, firefighters and other basics. A February memo from Hagan’s office that first presented the team’s pitch emphasized that none of that funding would be used, and the fund will take a hit if Gov. Ron DeSantis’ proposed property tax referendum passes in November. Cameron Cepeda and Wostal criticized the use of reserves, but Fesler assured commissioners Friday that the county was comfortable with the amount of reserves being tapped.

The last piece of the county contribution is $30 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s disaster relief funds. That money can go toward stormwater projects and infrastructure, but it has to go through added layers of approval.

Hagan, perhaps better than anyone, knows not to celebrate too hastily. “Shovels aren’t in the ground, yet,” he said.

A Rays stadium deal has collapsed before, and plenty of proposals have been abandoned. There are obstacles left to clear.

“But,” he said from his office, “today was most certainly monumental.

“There’s no going back.”

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Tampa Bay Times staff writers Lizzy Alspach and Marc Topkin contributed to this report.

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