Nats, Astros pitching Palm Beach County tourism council about spring training site today (updated)

Today's the day officials from the Nationals and Astros meet with the Palm Beach County Tourist Development Council to make their pitch for a new shared spring training site.

According to news reports, the teams will ask for Palm Beach County to chip in almost $155 million from a hotel tax to help offset costs for the stadium project. About $50 million in funds from a state program designed to retain Grapefruit League teams would be combined with almost $57 million from the Astros and Nationals in rent payments over 27 years.

The Nationals and Astros are scheduled to meet with the Palm Beach County Commission later this month.

The teams are hopeful they can convince Palm Beach County to build the shared spring training facility on 160 acres in West Palm Beach near Haverhill Road and 45th Street. It would include a new stadium, offices and practice facilities for both teams.

The Nationals want to move from their current spring base in Viera to be closer to more teams, while the Astros are seeking a newer facility than their current home in Osceola County Stadium in Kissimmee. Currently, the Nationals' shortest road trip is a one-hour drive to the Astros facility in Kissimmee.

The proposed site would be a short drive from Jupiter, where the Marlins and Cardinals train at Roger Dean Stadium, and less than an hour from Port St. Lucie, spring home of the Mets. That would cluster five teams in a small geographcial area, with longer trips to play the Braves in Lake Buena Vista, the Tigers in Lakeland and Red Sox and Twins across the state in Fort Myers.

Nationals managing partner Mark Lerner has said that he expects the team to train in Viera for at least one more season, but it's unlikely a new facility in West Palm Beach could be completed in time for the 2016 Grapefruit League campaign. The Nationals' lease at Space Coast Stadium expires after the 2017 spring campaign, but they can leave early because they have repaid construction bonds to Brevard County. The Nationals have previously requested to exit their lease in Viera after next spring.

The Nats have previously tried to work out a deal with Osceola County for a shared facility in Kissimmee, but those plans went belly-up when tourism officials decided instead to work on luring a lucrative rodeo competition to central Florida. They also attempted to convince Lee County to let them move into vacant City of Palms Park in Fort Myers - adding a third team to that city on the state's southwest coast - but the county was reluctant to commit funds and a planned private investor who wanted to rehab the area around the stadium in exchange for tax credits pulled out of the project.

When those proposals failed to gain traction, the Nationals hired former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, a native of Palm Beach County, to help broker a deal in or near West Palm Beach. After Lerner and Foley met with Palm Beach County officials in March, the Nationals and Astros were presented with 10 possible locations for a shared facility.

Ironically, a move to West Palm Beach would be a homecoming of sorts for the Nationals, who moved from Montreal to Washington, D.C., for the 2005 season. From 1969-72 and 1981-97, the Montreal Expos held spring training in West Palm Beach, sharing a facility at Municipal Stadium with the Braves (from 1973-80, the Expos trained in Daytona Beach). The Expos also fielded a Single-A Florida State League based in West Palm Beach from 1969-97.

Update: The Palm Beach County Tourist Development Council voted 6-3 on Thursday to endorse a commitment of $3 million a year for 30 years for the new spring training facility proposed by the Nationals and Astros. But it decided upon further study of an escalator clause the teams want in the deal that could increase the value of the county's commitment by almost $65 million over the course of the deal.