“I do believe it sped up the process,” he says. Lear allows, but he believes the baseball team has had a business impact that extends to hotels. Hoteliers may have had their eye on the growing community before the Braves, Mr. The arrival of the Braves as new residents of West Villages and North Port announces to the world a new era for this part of Sarasota County.Ĭity Manager Lear says two hotel chains have expressed interest in building properties in North Port, which has lacked hotels. A tiki bar beyond the left-field fence will be open year-round, according to Mr. “I think the fan experience will be second to none,” he said.Īs with other modern spring training ballparks such as Charlotte Sports Park and CenturyLink, CoolToday Park will have a 360-degree concourse allowing fans to walk around the entire facility. Part of higher cost is because of fan amenities, Mr.
The estimated price tag for CoolToday Park is about $30 million more than the roughly $80 million spent on building Jet- Blue Park in Fort Myers, home of the Red Sox since 2012. Starting in 2020, the Braves will be part of a cluster of six teams on the west coast south of Tampa Bay, from the Pirates in Bradenton to the Twins and Red Sox in Fort Myers. Players don’t improve their skills or fitness spending hours on buses. “We want to keep the players off the bus,” Mr.
So a one-day trip to play the Twins means more than five hours on a bus. The official Major League Baseball spring training media guide lists the driving time from Disney to CenturyLink as 2 hours, 40 minutes. (the trip to CenturyLink, for example, is 132 miles each way). Over the past 20 years as teams have for the most part abandoned central Florida, the Braves have had more long bus rides for road games. Kissimmee, Vero Beach, Daytona, Winter Haven and Cocoa all had spring training baseball.īut no more. In addition to the Tampa Bay Rays in Charlotte County, the Braves play against the Baltimore Orioles in Sarasota, the Pittsburgh Pirates in Bradenton and the Boston Red Sox at JetBlue Park and Minnesota Twins at CenturyLink, both in Fort Myers.īack in the day, major league teams trained in central Florida and east coast cities far north of West Palm. Their new home will mean short drives for the Braves and fans to spring training games against other MLB teams. Dunn expects the team to move all its Florida operations into CoolToday Park by April 1 of this year.Īnd they’ll be here for a long time, having signed a 20-year agreement with Sarasota County, West Villages and North Port. JetBlue Park in Fort Myers is a similar facility and often hosts car shows, RV shows, a green market and and more. The park will also be used for community events such as concerts and other activities, which will be announced when the park is up and running. “It wasn’t anything Orlando or Disney did.” “We have a great relationship with Disney,” he says. Dunn emphasizes the Braves aren’t relocating because of anything that happened at their current home. North Port will be the Braves’ sixth Florida community since 1946. Team moves are as old as Spring Training itself. As the final touches and tweaks are put on the facility, the Braves will spend their 22nd and final spring in Lake Buena Vista at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Champion Stadium at Disney World. “It was an area that seemed to welcome and want the Atlanta Braves,” says Mike Dunn, vice president of Florida operations for the team.
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So are the Braves, who see this part of Florida’s west coast as a place full of promise, a booming community with enormous potential. “Definitely,” North Port City Manager Peter Lear says. But everyone here is abuzz as this year’s Spring Training nears. The West Villages Florida baseball stadium and complex will become the full-time Spring Training home of the Atlanta Braves in 2020.
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