Article and all photos by Joe Mock, BaseballParks.com
All rights reserved
NORTH PORT, FLORIDA In 1997, when the Atlanta Braves decided to move their spring training operations from West Palm Beach to the new Wide World of Sports Complex at Disney World, they elected to play only a single exhibition game there before moving in full-time in the spring of 1998.
Interestingly, the day after that March 28, 1997 exhibition at Disney, the Braves dashed to Atlanta to play another dress-rehearsal exhibition game at Turner Field, which had just been converted from the main stadium for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Six days later, the Braves played their first regular-season game there, beginning a highly successful 20-season run.
| Ballpark Stats |
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| Team: Atlanta Braves spring training |
| First game: March 24, 2019, a 4-2 win over the Rays |
| Capacity: 8,200, including 6,200 fixed seats plus room for 2,000 on berms and standing areas |
| Dimensions: LF – 335; LCF – 385; CF – 400; RCF – 375; RF – 325. The wall is 8′ tall in LF and 12′ in CF and RF |
| Architects: Fawley Bryant is Architect of Record and Pendulum is Stadium Design Architect |
| Construction: joint venture of local firm Tandem and national firm Barton Malow |
| Price: $125 million for the complex |
| Home dugout: 1B side |
| Field points: Northeast |
| Playing surface: Bermuda Tifway Sports Grass |
| Naming rights: CoolToday, a heating and cooling firm headquartered in Sarasota |
| Ticket info: braves.com/tickets |
| Betcha didn’t know: There are separate locker rooms for female umpires |
When the Braves’ attempts to work with the City of Atlanta on a new ballpark (or at least to allow the team to buy the land around Turner Field so they could create a mixed-use development surrounding a rebuilt stadium) fell through, they opted to develop land in suburban Cobb County. The result was the stunning Battery Atlanta development adjacent to the shiny new SunTrust Park. When it came time to break in the new ballpark, the team again played exhibitions just before the regular season to test out the new facilities.
You could say that the Braves have a tendency to sleep one night in a new apartment before moving the furniture in.
So when the team was looking to move away from Disney World to a new spring-training home in Sarasota County, it was only natural that they elected to play only a single game there before moving in the furniture.
And that’s what happened on March 24, 2019, when the Braves played their last Florida exhibition game of the spring at CoolToday Park in North Port, a day after their final game at Disney World. “We wanted to have a dry run (in North Port) to learn the building, kind of like what we did at Disney and at Turner Field,” the Braves’ Executive VP Chip Moore told me. “It lets you understand the operation a little better. Of course, it lets our fan base in Sarasota County get to experience the new park in 2019 as well. And it lets us have two ‘opening days’ — one in 2019 and one in 2020.”
Indeed, at the conclusion of 2019 spring training, the Braves started moving all of the “furniture” into the brand-new complex, bringing all of the training and baseball equipment down from Disney World. The next Braves game here will be in late February or early March of 2020, when the team will spend the entirety of spring training at their new facilities.
But there’s more to the story behind playing only one game in North Port in 2019.
You often hear the phrase “The Braves Way” used to describe the classy way the organization goes about everything it does — from teaching fundamentals to its young players to the way the team conducts business.
So in 2018 when they looked at the construction timeline for the new complex, everything appeared to be right on target to have the facility complete for the arrival of players in February 2019. Most teams would’ve crossed their fingers that everything would go well and that the construction would get done in the nick of time.
But the Braves don’t operate that way. Sure, they could stay on top of the things they can control, but they wanted to account for things they couldn’t control, like the weather. “If we’d have had a hurricane like the one in 2017, we’d have been shut down a minimum of two weeks, and maybe four,” Moore explained. “We’d have been at risk of not being finished by the time pitchers and catchers would’ve reported here.
| Where Dreams Came True |
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| The Braves’ spring home since 1997 was Champion Stadium at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Disney World. This shot is from the team’s final exhibition there on March 23, 2019. |
“At the end of the day, our ability to carry on spring training for our 220 players, and for our fans to plan their travel, it was too risky to count on spring training here this year.”
When the team reached this conclusion, they still had to sell the idea of holding only one game in 2019 to the governmental entities who had been their partners in the planning and funding of the new complex. “Early in the construction process, the Braves approached us to say they want to build a world-class facility, but they don’t want to risk a having a delay make for an inferior product,” said North Port City Manager Peter Lear. “They said, ‘How about we have a celebration when we play our last exhibition (of 2019) here, and then have a second grand opening for the full spring training in 2020?’ The professionalism the Braves organization showed was amazing.”
There’s that “Braves Way” thing again.
But why did the Braves want to move away from Disney World in the first place? Wouldn’t the families of the players and staff — not to mention the fans — love coming to Disney each spring forever?
“Disney has been a great partner for us and the experience has always been top-notch for our fans,” Moore said. “The amenities we had at Disney, though, were older and didn’t keep up with other spring training facilities that have opened in the last 20 years.”
And just as the Astros fretted about the long bus rides their players were encountering to play other teams in Florida, the Braves saw their nearby rivals moving farther and farther away — especially with the Braves (Kissimmee) and Nationals (Viera) moving to West Palm Beach. “With the exception of Lakeland, our players were spending an average of two hours each way on buses for away games. That’s a lot of time away from training. That was the major reason why we looked elsewhere.”
We’ll look at the reasons why the Braves chose North Port in a moment, but first let’s look at the financials of the deal.
Sarasota County already had the Orioles holding spring training in the City of Sarasota, but the county is a large one, and at its southern tip is North Port. Whenever there’s a project that will cost $125 million to build, a number of revenue sources are necessary. Here’s the breakdown:
- Homebuilder Mattamy Homes donated $4.7 million, the land for the project and paid for infrastructure improvements
- The West Villages Improvement District issued the bonds for the construction
- The City of North Port contributed $4.7 million
- Sarasota County designated hotel bed-tax revenues of $21.3 million
- The Spring Training Retention Fund at the State of Florida allocated $20 million
- The Braves committed to paying the remainder of the costs, as well as any overruns. Their rent will be used to pay the debt service on the bonds issued by West Villages
I guess it takes a village to build a spring training complex — or in this case, West Villages (later renamed Wellen Park) along with governmental entities and the team. CoolToday, a local heating-and-cooling company headquartered in Sarasota, bought the naming rights on the ballpark. Those terms were not made public.
At a pricetag of at least $125 million, the Braves’ complex is the most expensive single-team spring-training facility ever built.
Was it worth it? Why was it constructed in fairly undeveloped marshlands in southern Sarasota County? And what reactions did the one-game soft opening generate? Read on …
The Setting
So we know the Braves wanted their new complex to be near other teams for the ease of playing exhibitions without ridiculously long bus trips. So why not the Phoenix area, where all ten complexes are in the same metro area?
“We wouldn’t consider Arizona,” Moore remarked. “Our fan base travels quite well to our spring training in Florida, so it was our first and only choice.”
He said the team examined both coasts of Florida, particularly Palm Beach County (already the spring home of four big-league teams) on the Atlantic side. They wanted to be close to a major airport so the fans and team staff could reach it easily. And it had to be close to other teams.
| Moore got more |
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| Chip Moore, Executive VP of the Braves, has invested enormous time and energy into bringing CoolToday Park to life. “The facility we’re providing for our team is second to none,” he pointed out. |
“South Sarasota County is almost like a setting in Arizona where we’re so close to other clubs.” Moore quickly ticked off the teams that are close by: the Rays (10 minutes away in Port Charlotte); the Orioles and Pirates (a 35-minute trip to Bradenton/Sarasota); the Twins and Red Sox (55 minutes away in Fort Myers); the Yankees, Phillies and Blue Jays (90 minutes away in the Tampa area).
Moore also made the pitch that it’s an easy drive for fans coming from Atlanta. “It’s as simple as this,” he said with a chuckle. “You take a right, then a left out of SunTrust Park, then you stay on I-75 to the River Road exit and come into our complex.”
The new facility “brings a lot to our community,” Lear explained. “Just the announcement that the Braves were coming brought an economic impact. I’ve worked for the City for 11 years, and for that whole time, we tried to get a major hotel chain to build here. Now we have four that are interested.”
He added that with only 25-30% of the City’s land developed, the chance to expand homes and services — and hence the tax base — was extremely attractive. That’s also why the largest homebuilder in the area and the largest developer were interested in contributing to the construction of the complex, since it would bring more businesses and more things to do for the homeowners.
The complex’s street address, though, is 18800 South West Villages Parkway, Venice, FL 34293. Venice?
Lear explained that the complex is indeed within the city limits, “but that area of town is the West Villages Improvement District. They get all of their municipal service from us, but when they were annexed into our City, the Post Office had no interest in redrawing their lines or creating a new North Port zip code, because they said there weren’t enough people there yet.” So it remains Venice.
And the complex is a short drive from the Rays’ spring HQ in Port Charlotte — so close that if the Braves decide to move their Florida State League franchise to CoolToday Park (something that I hope happens, because it would be shame not to have a regular-season tenant at this park), the Charlotte Stone Crabs might object on territorial grounds. But I doubt they would.
Even the City’s original name shows its proximity to Port Charlotte: North Port Charlotte. Local voters decided in 1974, though, to shorten the City’s official name to North Port. Still, prior to the Braves’ arrival, this City didn’t have the national recognition of, say, the City of Sarasota, despite having a larger population.
When I first visited the site early in 2017, I thought I’d been given bad directions. There was nothing in the area but forests and bogs as far as the eye could see. No businesses. No homes. Just a blank slate — and one not visible from the major highway through the area, Tamiami Trail (US Route 41).
Steve Padget, Principal at the Architect of Record for the project, Fawley Bryant, said “We originally looked at several parcels close to here, including one right on Tamiami Trail. The problem was that those properties had marshlands, which would’ve involved the Environmental Protection Agency. And those guys promise no timetable for approvals. So this site was selected.”
 As you drive into the complex on West Villages Parkway, the ballpark is the first thing in the complex you notice. Following the March 24th game, though, these lanes were jammed and barely moving. |
And development has indeed started nearby, with a shopping center that will include a Publix supermarket currently under construction a mile north of the complex on Tamiami Trail. And there’s land where West Villages can build a hotel just beyond the left-field concourse of CoolToday Park.
Which brings up an interesting facet of the Braves’ search for a new spring-training site. When the team was thinking about what it wanted to do about a new regular season home (that ended up being SunTrust Park), much of the decision-making centered around their desire to be involved in commercial development. The result was the spectacular Battery Atlanta mixed-use development that was built adjacent to SunTrust Park.
In Florida, though, such considerations weren’t part of the deliberations, as the ability to develop the land surrounding the new complex was left to West Villages — including the square parcel they retained just outside of CoolToday Park that is likely to become a hotel one day.
The main problem that faced fans who attended the exhibition on March 24th wasn’t incomplete facilities — because the amenities at the park appeared to be 100% complete — it was traffic. “We knew from the beginning that it was going to be an issue for this game, because there’s only one way in and one way out,” Padget said. And that one way is West Villages Parkway going south from Tamiami Trail. The only other completed road is the continuation of West Villages Parkway, which actually leads to the back (gated) entrance of a huge housing community.
The worst fears of traffic planners (if indeed there were any for the March 24 game) were realized when a fatal auto accident occurred at the intersection of West Villages and Tamiami just as the game was ending. Even under the best of circumstances, there would’ve been a bottleneck when several thousand cars were attempting to leave the complex. But with that route closed for several hours, drivers were directed by police to a single-lane road that snaked through that housing development.
Yes, a traffic nightmare.
The hope is that by the time exhibition games resume in 2020, there will be a road built that exits south from the complex to, well, somewhere. There isn’t any development to the south — but maybe there will be. I hope the mess of 3/24/19 encourages the County or City to build at least one more exit route.
Otherwise, the setting is quite lovely and tranquil. The fact that (for now) not a lot is built up around the complex is a pleasant departure from the congested nature of other spring training sites. Of course, the developer and City are hoping for more building and more congestion. That’s why they contributed to this project.
The Exterior
Aside from being closer to other teams to play, the whole point of the Braves’ move was to have a better place for their players to train. The new complex certainly is a big step up from the facilities at Disney World, which was designed prior to the Braves’ decision to move there in 1997. “Everything you need in a spring training environment is right there really close, and we’re not used to that,” Braves manager Brian Snitker told reporters prior to the March 24 game. “This is going to be a really good working atmosphere here.”
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| The view from the tower at the center of the four Minor League practice fields. You can see the main stadium in the distance. |
The complex that surrounds CoolToday Park has every element a modern-day spring-training facility should have. There are four Minor League practice fields (with a tower in the center complete with a concession stand and restrooms), two Major League fields (plus the stadium), an agility field that can also be used for infield practice, pitching mounds and batting tunnels for both the big leaguers and Minor Leaguers, a 55,000-square-foot clubhouse with space for every workout, training and meeting function you can imagine. The locker room for the big leaguers is to die for. Yep, everything you’d expect is here.
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| The weights and training equipment had yet to be moved in, which makes this room seem even more massive. There’s even a balcony with cardio machines. |
Plus one you might not have imagined. Currently under construction in the heart of the complex is the Braves Academy. “When it comes online in 2020, we’ll be able to house 103 of our players during spring training onsite, and then our Gulf Coast League and extended spring training (players) will be able to live on campus,” Moore said. The team will be able to control what they eat and how they train, plus there will be classrooms to teach both baseball fundamentals and English as a second language. “It will be a tremendous benefit to our player development.”
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| The Major League locker room couldn’t be more plush. |
Incidentally, while much of the areas for parking is paved, the unpaved lots for overflow parking are on the southern edge of the complex. These lots are graded so that soccer games can be played there, very reminiscent of the grass lots on the southern edge of FITTEAM Ballpark of the Palm Beaches. These youth fields will definitely be used by the nearby communities. “Community involvement was also important for the project,” Padget pointed out. “We wanted it to be used year-round.”
The Architects of Record on the complex, Fawley Bryant, worked very closely with Pendulum, the Stadium Design Architect, to make sure everything worked well together — and the level of coordination is astounding, both functionally and visually.
The exterior of CoolToday Park is gorgeous, especially the side behind third base. There is a large grassy field where community events — farmers markets, concerts, etc. — can be held.
The main ticket windows are also located on this side, and the concrete plaza behind home features the team’s retired numbers, with Hank Aaron’s 44 being the most prominent (see the photo at the top of this page). When games aren’t going on, you can access the two-level team store from this plaza.
Because of the high water table here, the field couldn’t be excavated below street level. That means you must walk up stairs to reach the main concourse within the park. The three entrance gates are near the left-field foul pole, behind the third-base-side on-deck circle and behind the first-base on-deck circle. Each feature steps that lead you up to the concourse and action photos of famous Braves along one wall. The store is directly in between the two entry stairs in the infield.
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| This is the entry near the left-field foul pole. |
At first glance, the exterior of the ballpark bears a resemblance to the one in West Palm Beach. Upon closer inspection, the the use of color is more pronounced in North Port. And as is the case on the interior of the park and team offices, the contrasting colors of red and blue are used just enough. As Moore put it, “If you use those colors all over the place, then they aren’t ‘accents’ any more.” The right amount was used in the right places, which makes the exterior of CoolToday Park prettier than Ballpark of the Palm Beaches.
Now let’s take a look at the interior.