Proposal: Atlanta Braves to St. Petersburg Area for Spring
Mar 11, 2014; Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA; Fans enter through the gates at ESPN
Marc Topkin, the Tampa Bay Rays beat writer for the Tampa Bay Times is reporting today that a proposal has been made to build a new Spring Training complex to Pinellas County, Florida. There are several aspects to this proposal, but the most important one is that one of the partners in this development venture is the Atlanta Braves.
Proposal made to bring #Braves spring training to Pinellas County in new complex, with Gary Sheffield a partner http://t.co/6P1vE0yw1S
— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) September 22, 2015
The site is located on Florida’s central west coast – west of Tampa Bay, North of St. Petersburg and Pinellas Park, and East of Largo. More specifically, it’s the site of the Toytown landfill, which has been (unsuccessfully) pushed for development by leaders in Pinellas County for a number of years.
Earlier in 2015, the County decided to ramp up its efforts and asked for development proposals on the 240 acre site, which is depicted below from the Pinellas County website.
Toytown landfill site in Pinellas County, FL. Photo credit: dorianphotography.com.
As you can see, highway access to the site is ideal, with Interstate 275 bordering the property. It is specifically for travel considerations that the Braves are interested – motivated, even – to leave their current Spring home of Champions Stadium at Walt Disney World. The Braves’ lease for that facility expires after 2016.
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Though the state of Florida’s peninsula is relatively narrow – 150-ish miles across – the Braves are being orphaned in the midst of the state as most of their Spring sparring partners have bolted for one coast or the other. The Nationals and Astros are getting started on a new facility in West Palm Beach, leaving only the Tigers at Lakeland.
Road trips to either coast from Disney requires at least 90 minutes of bus time and up to 3 hours – each way. Once you add warm-ups, batting practice… and a game… that pretty much blows an entire day. Moving to the West would place the Braves among the Yankees, Phillies, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Rays, Orioles, Twins, and Pirates. Most “Away” game travel would then be reduced to under one hour.
Honestly, the Tampa Bay Rays would probably be jealous of this – given the access issues with their own major league ballpark – buried deep in the southern half of the county.
The Development
The numbers involved in this venture are staggering: the estimated total investment is said to be $662 million…. roughly identical to the expenditures being made in Atlanta for the stadium portion of the Sun Trust Park project.
Quoting from TampaBay.com:
"…the proposed “SportsPark” would be an “international destination facility” including facilities to host tournaments in a dozen sports, including basketball, soccer and swimming.The proposal would include a 10,000-seat baseball stadium with berm seating for an additional 1,000 fans, a 15,000-seat fieldhouse for basketball or other indoor events, a track and field facility with 20,000 seats, an aquatic center with a pool and hockey rink and a 200,000-square foot dormitory that could house 800 people."
As suggested above, one of the partners includes the Gary Sheffield Sports Foundation. Yeah – that Gary Sheffield. Sheffield – a native of the area – is interested in bringing in low-income/inner city children to play baseball alongside the professionals.
The Braves’ interest monetarily is unknown at present, though the 258-page proposal includes a letter from John Schuerholz that mentions, as the TB Times puts it, “significant interest in exploring a partnership.”
Stay Tuned
The proposal also mentions that the facility could be shared among two teams for Spring use. At this time, no other team is mentioned for this site other than Atlanta (Detroit has recently re-upped themselves for 20 years in Lakeland – hat tip to @chopaholic813 for that info).
While the Braves have continued to actively scour the coastlines for useful sites, this proposal is still just what it is – a proposal. It has to compete against other options (at least two) that have been handed in to Pinellas County officials, though certainly having the Braves in the mix should carry some significant weight. From the snippets teased in the TampaBay.com piece, the SportsPart Partners certainly have the most ambitious plan.
If built, the Braves would still have to stay at Disney for one additional year beyond their current lease, as construction would be expected to require a couple of years. But of the ideas we’ve told you about previously, this is certainly the one with the most “meat” to the story.