LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – Mark Shapiro visited the training centres of English Premier League sides Tottenham and Arsenal while attending a conference in London last week, seeking ideas for the new spring facility moving closer to reality for the Toronto Blue Jays.
The club’s president and CEO also met with a couple San Antonio Spurs executives – president of sports franchises R.C. Buford and director of basketball strategy Phil Cullen – because "they’re going through their own planning and they’ve been to every facility in the world, Italy, Spain, all over the U.S."
Shapiro’s aim was to examine how other teams have created "a good performance-training environment," so that when construction begins on the new training and rehabilitation centre planned for the Englebert Complex, "we’re building it as an environment that can help foster a championship."
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Steps remain before the $81-million deal with Dunedin is finalized – the process of turning the terms of an agreement between the city and team into a contract was to begin Friday, while official county approval and an application for state funds are still needed.
But, "the heaviest lifting is done," said Shapiro.
"I feel really good. No deal is ever done until it’s done, but we’ve got good momentum, we should be able to push it across in the next month or six weeks," he added. "I’m at the point now where I’m letting myself think more concretely about design and drawing and where we’re going to go with actually executing the facilities."
The terms of agreement recently approved by Dunedin includes a detailed listing of spatial and technological needs for both the new training centre and the refurbishment of Florida Auto Exchange Stadium.
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But with the design process yet to begin, Shapiro toured the Tottenham and Arsenal facilities, where the first team and academy players for both sides share the same centre.
Integrating the Blue Jays’ major-league and minor-league players during the spring has been a priority for Shapiro since he joined the Blue Jays two years ago.
"We want to look at our presence down there as a resource and a potential competitive advantage," he said. "We’re looking at how do you design to build and reinforce a championship culture? Design can impact culture. We’re trying to think about how do we build in the best wet area that aids in recovery? How do we build the best rehabilitation resources, like a sand pit? The second part would be how do we maintain flexibility in the space so in seven or eight years if we want to make changes, it’s not a tear-down, it’s a reconfigure?
"We’re just being really thoughtful about how we think about designing the player experience."
