PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- Since 1988, the Minor League facilities at Mets camp have gone almost entirely unchanged. Asked about any renovations over the past four decades, one Mets official quipped that the building has at least received several new coats of paint.
That is all about to change. On Wednesday, the Mets held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new 55,000-square-foot player development complex, which will go up over the next year. Once completed, the facility will include a 7,000-square-foot weight room with cardio space including turf and gymnastic flooring; a clubhouse with 180 lockers; a hydrotherapy area including hot and cold plunge pools, treadmill pools and extremity tubs; a training room; a batting cage; a turf field; a dining room with a full-service kitchen; and a multipurpose room.
The price tag: Approximately $60 million, according to a person with knowledge of the plans, paid entirely by Mets owner Steve Cohen.
“Since Steve and Alex bought the team, they’ve had an unwavering commitment to turning the Mets into the preeminent development organization in baseball,” president of baseball operations David Stearns said. “Today’s ceremony, the groundbreaking, the construction of our new facility is certainly emblematic of that commitment.”
For the better part of the last decade, Mets officials contemplated the prospect of creating a new Minor League complex. Past ideas included tacking that onto the major stadium renovations that occurred in 2020, or even linking the Minor League facilities to the existing big league structure.
In the end, Cohen’s willingness to foot the bill allowed the project to happen in its current form. The cost wound up being more than the 2020 stadium renovations, which were largely publicly funded. Construction on the new project should be done by April 2027 -- a “warp speed” timeline, as Stearns described it.
The complex is also part of a larger player-development plan. In addition to the Port St. Lucie complex, the Mets are building new facilities in the Dominican Republic.
“A lot of the conversation, a lot of the coverage, a lot of the discussion around our organization centers around what we do in New York and what we do as a Major League team and the wins and losses,” Stearns said, standing before the old Minor League building that will soon be razed. “But all of the progress and effort and work begins here.
“It begins in the building that I’m looking at right now. It begins in the complex that’s going to exist right behind me in a matter of months. The state-of-the-art complex that we’re going to build here will provide our athletes and our coaches with everything they can possibly need. It’s going to cement us as the preeminent development organization in baseball.”