City of Palms Park

Home plate entrance to City of Palms Park, Aug-2003.

The stadium became used primarily by Florida SouthWestern State College. This photo taken Mar-2021.

As is traditional, the batter faces northeast. Photo taken Mar-2021.

• Location: Broadway and Edison Avenue, Fort Myers, Fla. (map it using Google Maps)
• Opened: 1993
• Home team: Spring training, Boston Red Sox (1993-2011); Florida SouthWestern State College Buccaneers, FCSAA Suncoast Conference (2016-22)
• Capacity: 6,850

I was unable to get inside City of Palms Park when I visited in August 2003, but I was able to get a photo of the seating bowl by standing out on Hoople Street and shooting past a practice field. I finally got to a junior college game in March 2021 and took a few photos from inside.

Effective with the 2012 season, City of Palms Park is out of the spring training business, as the Red Sox have moved to a new facility southeast of city limits. The city-owned ballpark continues to see amateur tournaments as well as use by the state junior college that serves Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Glades and Hendry counties.

When the Red Sox played spring training games here, they utilized the Lee County 5-Plex as their back fields. That facility is two miles east on Edison Avenue. With the opening of Fenway South, all the Red Sox spring operations are consolidated at one facility.

The park saw seven years of use by Florida SouthWestern State College, which serves Lee and Collier counties, but the school has since opened its own facility and so the City of Fort Myers is now looking to demolish this stadium and repurpose the land.