Homestead Sports Complex

Homestead Sports Complex in Homestead, FL, was nearly the home of Homestead affiliated baseball. The city opened the complex, anchored by a spring-training quality stadium, in 1991 on limited-use land just inside the Homestead Air Reserve Base crash zone, with the Cleveland Indians signed to a long-term spring-training deal that was to start in 1993.

Such a deal could have led to Indians' farm teams in the Florida State League and the Gulf Coast League (now the Florida Complex League), and might have attracted more professional ball nearby. Instead, in August 1992, Hurricane Andrew destroyed it. By the time the city rebuilt it, the Indians had committed to Winter Haven - which, having just lost the Boston Red Sox, leveraged a 10-year lease. Homestead never recovered pro ball, just pro-soccer near misses and some TV and movie productions. It played a pro football practice facility in Any Given Sunday (1999) and eventually housed the Homestead Police Department.

No pro baseball stadium has been built or seriously contemplated south of Lake Okeechobee since this one, which was damaged again in 2017 by Hurricane Irma. It was demolished in 2019.

After 15 springs in Winter Haven, the Tribe - now the Cleveland Guardians - moved their spring operations to Arizona.

On June 13th, 2023, the city announced it will unveil a new redevelopment plan with the original name and an old but improved goal: a state-of-the-art 130-acre sports complex. The process soon began with the demolition of the remaining buildings.[1]