During a workshop July 28, Fort Myers City Council directed the city manager to hire a structural engineer to assess what parts of the 32-year-old stadium could be salvaged before demolition. Council still must hold a formal vote on demolition at a future regular meeting.
City of Palms Park was the home of the Boston Red Sox from 1993 to 2011, before the team moved to a larger spring training facility near Gateway outside the city. The city has struggled to find use for the stadium since then. Two deals to turn the stadium into a soccer facility failed.
City Manager Marty Lawing said the stadium in Midtown, just south of downtown, is hindering development in the area. The stadium and surrounding parcels total 21 acres.
“The primary goal is to make the site ready for redevelopment,” Lawing told council members. “It’s not just the maintenance cost, which is about $200,000 a year now.”
The city can’t put out a bid for demolition until the Council officially votes, but a local demolition company estimated it would cost approximately $1 million. The county most likely won’t contribute to the demolition cost, Lawing said.
Council members Terolyn Watson and Fred Burson were hesitant about demolishing the stadium. Burson wants to see the locker rooms and offices preserved.
“I think the corner says a lot,” he said. “It’s beautiful when you drive by the way it sits back off the corner, all the palm trees out front. It’s a pretty building and it’s still pretty efficient. I don’t mind tearing down the rest of the stadium if necessary.”
He also suggested one option would be turning the site into a park, instead of buying land to build a park.
Council member Darla Bonk supports demolishing the stadium. She said developers from across the country have expressed interest in building in Midtown, but the stadium has stood in the way.
Everyone wanted some kind of historical preservation if the stadium is demolished.
“If we take the stadium down, we need to have a plaque or a monument or like Wembley Stadium did in London, when they removed the Olympic stadium, they left a column up as a monument,” council member Liston Bochette said.
Burson said the biggest obstacle would be finding a developer with imagination.
“All you have to do is do a little bit of research, and you will find historical buildings that have been incorporated into new, modern facilities,” Burson said. “They either build on top of what’s existing, or they incorporate it into the new structure.”
Bonk suggested there might be a way to keep the facade.
Council asked city staff to hire a structural engineer to see what might be salvaged.
