The Florida home of the Blue Jays, Florida Auto Exchange
Stadium, has been called “a throwback to the bygone era of spring training,
both in size and appearance.” The oldest and smallest spring training site
lacks most of the creature comforts found in modern stadiums. The Blue Jays lease
expires in 2017 and team president and CEO Mark Shapiro has publicly stated
that he will seek a new training facility and stadium from the city of Dunedin.
But for a town of just 30,000 people, coming up with $40-50M to finance a new
stadium may be an insurmountable task.
According to Blue Jays’ Director of
Florida Operations Shelby Nelson, the state has earmarked $25M for the project
on the condition that the team signs a 25-year lease. That’s certainly a start,
but the lengths that Dunedin is willing to go to remain to be seen. Spring
training coincides with Canadian March break and each year thousands of
families flock to Dunedin. The city has been the Blue Jays only spring training
home since 1977 and losing the team could be costly.
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