Tampa Bay Rays executives made it official Friday and announced the team is no longer pursuing plans to build a waterfront, open-air stadium in downtown St. Petersburg.

Given the opposition the Major League Baseball team has met since the plan was unveiled in November 2007, the decision isn’t a surprise.

“This really comes as no surprise,” said Rick Mussett, St. Petersburg’s senior administrator. “There was little support for it.”

The Rays have decided against the waterfront, not downtown, Mussett said. “This is an issue that’s going take years to unfold,” he added.

A Tampa Bay Rays representative declined to confirm if downtown is still an option for the field. The team is under contract with the city until 2027.

Critics loudly complained city taxpayers shouldn’t foot the bill for the $450 million stadium and that the former Al Lang Field, on the city’s waterfront, wasn’t the right location for a 34,000-seat stadium.

And a study, commissioned by the team, showed it would be in the Rays’ best interests to move to mid-Pinellas, doubling the population within a 30-minute drive. Lagging attendance has been a perennial issue for the team since it made its 1998 debut.

The report looked at six prospective sites and found that Carillon Center in mid-Pinellas “would provide excellent potential for shared parking with adjacent development and excellent connectivity to the I-275 interstate corridor.” The report assumed 12,000 spaces will be needed for the stadium with an average of 2.9 fans per vehicle.

A group, called A Baseball Community Coalition, hasn’t yet made its recommendation on the best site to replace Tropicana Field.