Joe CapozziMinor league players see no problems as workers cart out rubble and demolish walls at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium in Jupiter.
Batting helmets aren’t the only hard hats being worn around Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium this summer.
A $108 million renovation of the spring training complex in Jupiter has ramped up in recent weeks. But for minor league players with the Jupiter Hammerheads and Palm Beach Cardinals, it’s been business as usual so far.
Inside the stadium, players compete in Florida State League games, focusing on goals to reach Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals.
Off the field, it’s a whole new ballgame.
Just beyond the stadium’s center field and right field wall, earth-movers and construction workers are preparing the foundations for a training facility next to the existing Cardinals’ clubhouse.
And just beyond the left field corner, the aluminum bleachers and picnic area have been removed. Earlier this month, workers tore up the concrete there to make way for a two-story Fan Zone that will offer an elevated hospitality bar and 300 ticketed seats.
The future Fan Zone site is blocked from the field by green protective fencing, and the upper end of a yellow excavator was visible from seats in the ballpark. And if you’re seated in the upper bowl behind home plate and third base, you can see other bulldozers just beyond the Cardinals clubhouse.
“It’s a little disorienting because you realize you are in an active work site,’’ said Toby Srebnik, who has attended Florida State League games at the stadium for 25 years.
But Srebnik was quick to point out that the construction areas are blocked to protect fans and players. Once the games start, it feels like just another day at the ballpark.
Players focus on their work
“It does not seem like a major inconvenience for anyone attending a game this year, and that’s all that really matters,’’ he said.
Players are a little closer to the construction action. But other than having to park their cars farther away, they’re not complaining, either.
“We have another batting cage we have to use that’s a little farther back, since they already took out the one right behind the field. But other than that everything seems pretty normal,’’ said third baseman Cade McGee, who won FSL player of the week honors in early April.
Hammerheads players are using new temporary weight rooms, training rooms and a cafeteria. But their focus is on their own work, not on the construction crews.
“So much of it is contained within” areas “where we are not. All we see is them carting out rubble and broken down walls,’’ Hammerheads manager Nick Weisheipl said.
“For us, it’s just something that kind of blends into the fabric of everything else that we are doing, so it’s not really any disruption.’’
Clubhouses to be renovated
The renovations, launched after the Cardinals and Marlins left spring training in late March, mark the first major changes since the complex opened in 1998. The work is expected to be finished by spring 2026.
Among other highlights:
- Each of the two clubhouses, originally built in 1997, will undergo partial renovations.
- A locker room for male and female umpires will be built.
- A 3,000-square-foot shop will replace the teams’ cramped store.
For the 2025 spring training season, the bullpens were moved to their new permanent spots behind the left and right field walls. From 1998 to 2024, the bullpens were on the field, outside the first and third baselines near the foul poles.
Stadium General Manager Mike Bauer referred questions about the renovations to the teams. Tony Brasile, a Marlins executive overseeing the renovations, did not return an email seeking comment.
Project delayed in 2023
Starting the renovations has been a challenge.
Work was scheduled to start in the summer of 2023 and be completed over two years, a timeline that led the Hammerheads and Cardinals to play the 2023 Florida State League season at The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches.
About two-thirds of the renovation costs come from the state and a county tax on hotels. The teams are paying the rest.
But cost concerns and delays — the original contractor was fired after failing to secure permits from the town of Jupiter — led to revised plans that allowed the Marlins and Cardinals to remain in Jupiter during the work instead of finding a temporary spring training site elsewhere
When the work is done, the Cardinals and Marlins will have modern amenities comparable to or better than the newest spring training facilities, including The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches in West Palm Beach.
“We know it’s a temporary inconvenience, even if you want to call it that, for a bigger payoff once it’s all completed,’’ Weisheipl, the Hammerheads manager, said.
“In the long run,’’ he said, “we’ll make the best of the situation.’’
Read more from Joe Capozzi at ByJoeCapozzi.com.
Joe Capozzi is an award-winning reporter based in Lake Worth Beach. He spent more than 30 years writing for newspapers, mostly at The Palm Beach Post, where he wrote about the opioid scourge, invasive pythons, and Palm Beach County government. For 15 years, he covered the Miami Marlins baseball team. Joe left The Post in December 2020. He publishes the Lake Worth Beach Independent on Substack, covering the town where he lives.
