As Sarasota County, Fla., tries to put together a deal to build a spring-training facility for the Braves, team officials haven’t let go of the idea of returning their spring home to the Palm Beach area.
Braves CEO Terry McGuirk, who fondly remembers spring training with the team in West Palm Beach, is scheduled to meet this week with leaders in Palm Beach County to discuss the chances of a return, The Palm Beach Post reported.
The Braves trained in West Palm Beach for 35 years before leaving for Disney’s Wide World of Sports near Orlando in 1998. Now the Braves want a new spring facility on either coast of Florida for 2018 and beyond to get closer to other teams and reduce travel time to exhibition games.
Sarasota County commissioners voted unanimously two weeks ago to pursue negotiations with the Braves. The county's director of economic development, Jeff Maultsby, said late last week that the county expects to know in "relatively short order" whether a deal will get done.
But the progress in Sarasota County hasn’t removed Palm Beach County from the Braves’ radar.
The Braves last month confirmed they had hired a lobbyist familiar with the Palm Beach area to pursue the possibility of a spring-training facility there. At the time, Braves president John Schuerholz said the organization has "very fond memories" of springs spent there and "would be comfortable" returning.
A new spring facility to be shared by the Houston Astros and Washington Nationals, largely funded with public money, is under construction in West Palm Beach. That raises questions about whether Palm Beach County would pour money into another new stadium.
But county commissioner Shelley Vana, who will be among those meeting with McGuirk on Tuesday night and Wednesday, told The Post: “At the end of the day, however we have to do it, we should try to get (the Braves). I think they want to be here. And the Atlanta Braves are a big draw.’’
Speculation about a possible site in Palm Beach County has focused on the Lake Worth area, although Vana didn’t rule out Delray Beach or Boca Raton.
Maultsby was asked during a Sarasota County tourism advisory council meeting about the possibility of a bidding war between Florida counties to land the Braves’ spring home.
“(Sarasota County Administrator Tom) Harmer indicated to the team that we were not interested in such a bidding war and wouldn’t necessarily get into that,” Maultsby said. “We will put our best foot forward, and if that was agreeable to them, then we would welcome them here. But if not, they were free to go on.”
Regarding a timeline for a deal, he said “the sooner the better” to have a stadium built by spring 2018.
