County doubles down on spring training

For the second time in a decade, Sarasota County officials are prepared to invest tens of millions of dollars to persuade a Major League Baseball team to make the area its spring training home.

The county is in exclusive negotiations to bring the Atlanta Braves to North Port. A deal isn’t finalized, but local leaders have already begun to express their excitement about a potential agreement involving a $75 million baseball complex — paid, in part, with $21 million in county funds.

“The potential economic impact for our community could be tremendous,” County Commissioner Paul Caragiulo said.

“The opportunity to bring a major sports anchor to the city of North Port could have a significant impact in south county,” County Administrator Tom Harmer said.

“There has long been a desire to have something to drive the economy down there, and we see this as a catalyst to do just that,” said Jeff Maultsby, the county’s director of business and economic development.

In 2009, the county finalized a deal to bring the Baltimore Orioles spring training operation to Ed Smith Stadium. The county committed to using tourist development tax funds for a $31 million stadium renovation project to keep spring training in Sarasota after the Cincinnati Reds departed for Arizona.

Together, the deals show the county’s firm belief in the value of spring training. At a time when state legislators are questioning economic incentives used to build stadiums and critics are outspoken about the public funding of sports facilities, local officials are committed to baseball as an economic tool.

Maultsby, who is working with officials from the Braves, North Port and the West Villages development on finalizing a deal, pointed to the 93-year history of spring training in the community as an influencing factor in the pursuit of the Braves.

“That history, as rich as it is, speaks for itself in a lot of ways,” Maultsby said.

Eight years after the Orioles deal, attempts to quantify the effect of the club’s presence show a significant benefit. A study said the team had an estimated economic impact of more than $89 million in 2016. The county said Ed Smith Stadium generated $31 million in direct economic impact from visitors from July 2015 through June 2016.

Visit Sarasota County President Virginia Haley said the Maryland-Virginia-Washington, D.C., region has become a top-three source of visitors to Sarasota year-round. She credited a unique wrinkle of the Orioles deal: The team provides Visit Sarasota $1 million annually in advertising via platforms such as the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, which shares an ownership group with the franchise.

“To me, that’s the biggest impact — that it opened up a new visitor-origin market for us,” Haley said.

Orioles Executive Vice President John Angelos said the marketing deal has helped the economic impact outpace even his initial estimates when the team first relocated.

“Our tourism creation model is totally different than what any other baseball team — or any sports team — offers to its local community,” Angelos said. “We really promote on a 365-day basis.”

Drawing visitors to Florida in February and March isn’t necessarily a Herculean feat. In total, the county estimated the spring training facility had an economic impact of $51.7 million from non-local sources in 2015-16. That figure is 1.8% of the overall $2.8 billion annual economic impact of tourism in Sarasota.

Still, Haley said spring training allows the hotels to charge higher rates during the most important time of year. She said the use of tourist tax funds meant there were limited options for spending the money that went toward improving Ed Smith Stadium.

“You can’t use it to solve traffic problems,” Haley said. “You cannot build roads. And, in fact, those same visitors are generating the money the county needs for roads and other things.”

When the county announced it was in exclusive negotiations with the Braves, Maultsby said officials were willing to use up to the maximum amount of tourist tax funds the charter allows without going to a referendum. That figure is expected to be around $21 million.

The Orioles deal drew criticism for not letting voters decide whether to spend the stadium funds. Two citizen groups filed litigation against the county for discussing terms of the deal outside of public meetings.

Maultsby said time drove the decision to avoid a referendum.

“It was one based primarily in speed to market, if you will,” Maultsby said. “The club indicated early on that their desire was to be out of Disney and into a new facility by spring 2019. In order for us to be in a position to be competitive in meeting that deadline, this was the best and most expedient option.”

“To me, that’s the biggest impact — that it opened up a new visitor-origin market for us.” Virginia Haley

County and North Port officials are counting on the Braves complex to serve as a catalyst for redevelopment. In Sarasota, however, the revitalization of Ed Smith Stadium has largely failed to spread outside of the confines of the baseball facility.

Former County Commissioner Joe Barbetta, a leading advocate for retaining spring training in advance of the Orioles deal, originally pitched a new stadium project near Payne Park as a redevelopment asset near downtown. He blamed city policy for the lack of a vibrant stadium district.

“The city should go over to that area around the stadium and overlay it,” Barbetta said. “They ought to do something there — give incentives for redeveloping the area.”

One challenge the city is facing is the location of the stadium. The surrounding area is largely zoned for industrial uses. Karin Murphy, who is developing a new citywide zoning code, said she doesn’t want to gentrify the industrial area, which she sees as a valuable source of local jobs.

She does want to foster a more walkable 12th Street in the new code, encouraging property owners to place offices on the front of the street and industrial facilities farther away. She hopes to strike a balance between the two contrasting conditions — including making it easier to develop microbreweries similar to JDub’s Brewing Co., which is located a few blocks from the stadium.

“You can have the pub portion on the frontage there, and behind it is the more intensive part of the brewing,” Murphy said.

Barbetta also regretted the Orioles’ failure to bring a minor league team to the area, as the Reds, Red Sox and White Sox did before them. He encouraged the franchise to continue to find ways to use the stadium for the other 10 months of the year.

“I do have a problem with the argument that it’s only 16 games, and then the stadium sits empty,” Barbetta said. “It shouldn’t. We pushed the Orioles on that, and slowly but surely they are doing things beyond baseball there.”

Angelos said the Orioles weren’t interested in bringing down an A-level minor league team because Florida summer league baseball isn’t an economic driver. He said the team wants to put on more events year-round, like its Arts in the Ballpark concert series. Sarasota is already a season-long training center for minor league players. 

“We have literally hundreds of people training in Sarasota in April, May, June,” Angelos said, “working every day at the complex, renting hotel rooms, renting cars, spending money in the community.”

In addition to local funds, a Braves deal could use a $20 million state grant to build a new complex. During the past year, state legislators have questioned the value of similar incentive programs, though there’s no indication the stadium funds will necessarily dry up soon.

For now, the county is pointing to the state’s investments as another sign spring baseball is good for business.

“The leadership at the state and local level seems to be of the mindset that it was a prudent and worthwhile investment,” Maultsby said.