The Ballpark at the Palm Beaches on target for first game on Feb. 28

Representatives from the Nationals and Astros met this week with Palm Beach County commissioners and told them that the teams' new spring training facility in West Palm Beach, The Ballpark at the Palm Beaches, is expected to open as scheduled on Feb. 28.

The Palm Beach Post reported that construction crews are racing to complete the new $148.5 million complex in time for the first scheduled Grapefruit League game.

Neither the Nationals nor Astros have released their spring training schedules, but it is expected that the two teams will square off in the first game at the new facility. However, some teams have released schedules that contain road trips to play the Nats and Astros in West Palm Beach.

Astros general counsel Gilles Kibbe and Nationals partner Art Fuccillo told commissioners that 12 practice fields on the 161-acre tract will be ready when the teams arrive for spring drills in mid-February, according to the newspaper.

Construction is a little behind after Hurricane Matthew hit Florida last month, the newspaper reported. Though the storm made landfall north of Palm Beach County, crews had to spend a couple of days securing the construction site, then two more getting construction again up and running.

Public multipurpose fields and a new city park at the facility should also be completed by the end of February, the newspaper said.

Palm Beach County officials are hoping that the new ballpark, and the spring presence nearby of the Marlins and Cardinals at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, will help lure the Braves to a new spring training facility at John Prince Park in Lake Worth, which is south of West Palm Beach. The Mets train north of West Palm Beach in Port St. Lucie, creating a cluster of five current teams on the East Coast of Florida.

The Braves are looking into options for a new spring training headquarters when their lease for Champion Field at the Disney complex in Lake Buena Vista expires following the 2018 Grapefruit League season.

With the Nationals and Astros - two of the Braves' most frequent spring opponents because of their proximity to Lake Buena Vista - moving to West Palm Beach, the Braves' closest opponents will be the Tigers 40 miles away in Lakeland and the teams clustered near Tampa, which are more than an hour away by bus.