A face-to-face meeting between team representatives and county leaders planned for Wednesday has been called off. The team has decided not to continue talks about the possibility of making Collier County its spring training home because the county can’t meet the tight deadline for having a new stadium built by spring 2018, said Gary Price, a partner in Naples-based Fifth Avenue Advisors.
“We’ve always known the 2018 requirement could be a show stopper for us,” he said.
The team has been also eyeing locations in Palm Beach and Sarasota counties, with at least one of them promising to build a stadium by 2018.