Plans for New College baseball field would place part of the outfield on Sarasota airport land

On Dec. 12, New College of Florida announced a $1 million donation from developer Carlos Beruff to help build a baseball stadium next to the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport, at the corner of University Parkway and US 41.

The future “Beruff Family Field of Dreams,” will be “one of the most visible athletic landmarks in the area,” said a statement from New College, noting its location will be near the entrance of the airport, on whose governing board Beruff happens to sit.

But there’s one problem, according to a former airport official who says the space on which New College plans to build the ballpark isn’t large enough, and the outfield would spill over onto land that is owned by the airport.

“Those ballparks have certain required dimensions, and the outfield, particularly the left field and center field, don’t fit on the New College land,” said John Schussler, who served as director of airport properties from 2005 to 2018 and is familiar with the area.

Schussler said his issue is not with the political direction of New College, which took a sharp turn right in 2023 when Republican Governor Ron DeSantis appointed six new members to its board and began remaking the honors college into a conservative institution, modeled after Hillsdale College in Michigan.

Schussler said he believes airport management should be non-partisan, but in his view, it is colluding with New College in a way that does not serve the public interest.

The root of the problem goes back to a long-term contract that the airport signed with New College decades ago, to lease about 30 acres of its land to New College until 2056.

READ MORE: Sarasota airport withdraws a controversial land sale to New College

As both New College and the airport plan to expand in the coming years, building a new stadium partially on land New College owns, and partially on land it rents from the airport, raises questions about the long-term viability of the proposed stadium, according to Schussler.

That’s because in about three decades, when the lease ends, any portion of the ballfield and stadium that is on airport land would be owned by the airport, not New College.

“That sets up a bad future situation if the airport ever wants to use its land for airport uses; that would make the New College baseball field useless by eliminating much of the outfield,” Schussler said.

“The Sarasota Manatee Airport Authority is creating a situation where they must sell land to New College in the future. Both (New College) and the (airport) choose to ignore this issue now as they focus on their short-term political interests,” he said in an email.

Details to come

New College has said little about the plans for the stadium, except for the location, which was formerly home to an antique car museum.

Already, the buildings that housed the museum have been demolished, and the ground is being cleared.

The college is keen to build a ballpark for its growing athletics programs. Its baseball players must travel off campus to practice.

“We will have additional details on construction plan and timeline forthcoming in the next few weeks,” New College spokesman Nate March said.

But Schussler believes the project should be halted, and has asked the Federal Aviation Administration to intervene.

“The issue is constructing a ball field that extends off that land onto airport land. And normally, if you tried to do that anywhere in city of Sarasota — which this is — the city permitting folks wouldn’t let you do that,” Schussler said.

Local officials may have little power to stop the plan. Statewide, public schools and public colleges are exempt from local zoning and building codes, according to Florida statute.

The airport land was at the center of controversy last year, when airport CEO Rick Piccolo said he foresaw complications on the horizon due, in part, to the low rental income from the lease. New College rents it for just over $100,000 per year, far below the current market rate.

With approval from the airport governing board and New College, Piccolo advanced a plan to sell about 30 acres to New College, rather than keeping it under the long-term lease that expires in about 30 years.

However, traffic at the Sarasota airport tripled between 2017 and 2023, and critics questioned why the airport would seek to sell land it might need in the future.

READ MORE: Seven reasons why the FAA blocked Sarasota airport’s land sale to New College

Piccolo’s son, Fred, has worked for the DeSantis administration in the past, and worked for Richard Corcoran when he was speaker of the Florida House. Corcoran is currently the president of New College.

The elder Piccolo has denied any political influence on his decision-making, and said airport planners saw no need for that parcel in the years ahead. He plans to retire later this year.

In the spring of 2024, the FAA blocked the sale, saying it was not in the airport’s best interest, and that the sale price of $11.5 million appeared to be below market value, among other reasons.

Piccolo appealed the decision but later withdrew the offer since he said it appeared the FAA was not likely to allow the deal to move forward.

Field of Dreams?

As to the Beruff ballpark, Piccolo said in an email it’s “only a concept at this point,” and “the airport has no regulatory involvement.”

“Should New College need to utilize some of the area presently under lease they would go through the same tenant construction review process as any other tenant as well as the normal airspace reviews in the FAA 7460-1 review process,” Piccolo said.

A smaller, softball field is already in use on the land leased to New College by the airport, according to Schussler. Piccolo referred to it as a “baseball field” in his email to WUSF.

“Given there is a presently a baseball field and parking on the leased portions of the PEI campus, it does not appear they are introducing a new use so the reviews would be to ensure airspace safety,” said Piccolo.

Piccolo added that the airport authority board “has not had one word of discussion on this and no board member has raised the matter with me. No proposal has been brought forth by New College and to my knowledge this is a ‘concept’ only.”

But a public records request of text messages between Piccolo and New College president Richard Corcoran show that the field is already in the design phase, while the stadium is still “a concept.”

Schussler has reached out to the FAA to let the federal agency know that the proposed field and stadium would straddle the line between land owned by the airport and land owned by New College, and asked the federal agency to stop the project.

He pointed out that the land New College owns “has no street access off US 41 or University Parkway, no auto parking, utilities, drainage, etc. So, their plan is to make the stadium dependent upon use of airport land for the stadium’s entire life, extending beyond the end of their lease of airport land,” he said in an email.

A letter in response from the FAA said, in part: “The Agency will review requests for land releases and construction of non-aeronautical facilities as they are presented to us by the airport sponsor. At this time, no proposals for this project have been made, and no FAA action is required.”

The next meeting of the Sarasota airport authority is January 27. No agenda has been set, so it’s unclear whether the baseball stadium will be brought up.

A majority of the six member airport authority board were appointed by either DeSantis or former governor Rick Scott.

Last year, when the issue of the land sale to New College was raised, the airport board approved it unanimously, with minimal discussion.

“Very soon the baseball field will be under construction and we will have missed the opportunity to discuss it,” Schussler said, adding that from the looks of the construction site, it appears “they are not waiting for FAA approval.” 

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