JetBlue Park

Project Overview

JetBlue Park, the new home of Red Sox spring training, opened in Ft. Myers, Florida in February 2012. As one of the marquee franchises in Major League Baseball, the Red Sox now have a spring training ballpark and player development complex that is best-in-class in every way. With a capacity of 11,000 fans, the ballpark includes a mix of fixed seats, standing room, and grass berm/family picnic seating options. The ballpark features a manual scoreboard in reverence to Fenway Park and an iconic white roof canopy which provides shade for 70% of the seating bowl. JetBlue Park also has a replica of Fenway’s “Green Monster” with seating both on top of and behind the wall, and an iconic undulating roof designed to reflect the energy and movement of the surrounding landscape. Beyond the ballpark, the player development complex includes six practice fields and state-of-the-art training and administrative facilities for the players, coaches, and front office staff. Ultimately, a Red Sox driven retail development will be incorporated around the facility to activate the entire area and make JetBlue Park a year round destination.

Our Role

JMI Sports provided consulting services to the Red Sox on pre-development activities including: benchmarking of comparable spring training facilities, comprehensive analysis of the initial project budget and subsequent revisions, detailed review of design development drawings and construction documents, comparison of general contractor estimates, identification of value engineering opportunities and on-site review of building mock-ups. In addition, we attended project meetings in Boston and Ft. Myers to meet with front office staff on their programming needs and review proposed building materials and signage/graphics design. Based on our experience in managing the development of the Cleveland Indians’ and Cincinnati Reds’ new spring training facilities in Arizona, we were able to provide the Red Sox with the most up to date design and programming considerations included in recent spring training complexes. During the construction phase, our team visited the jobsite, offering feedback and suggesting recommendations on a myriad of elements including finish selections, quality control on installed materials, branding, signage and path-of-travel/crowd control concerns. JMI Sports provided the Red Sox with a layer of comprehensive review and analysis that proved essential to realizing their project goals and ensured that JetBlue Park would be a first class spring training facility, without compromising budget or schedule.

The Boston Red Sox called on the experience of JMI Sports to provide expert guidance during the design and construction of our new spring training and player development complex in Lee County, Florida. Their contributions have proved to be extremely helpful in realizing the Club’s vision for JetBlue Park and Fenway South.