A new ballpark for students at New College of Florida was announced in December 2024, bolstered by a $1 million donation from developer and Sarasota-Manatee Airport Authority Board member Carlos Beruff, but it still hasn’t been built.
“It should be done by end of summer,” the college’s president, Richard Corcoran, told a board of trustees meeting last week.
A key issue has been the fact that New College doesn’t own enough land to build the whole ballfield, northeast of the intersection of University Parkway and Tamiami Trail. And federal aviation authorities have set restrictions on what can be done, and how, with airport land that New College leases.
Plans for the new ballpark, obtained in a public records request, show a large portion of the outfield — including center field, left field and the bullpen -- would be built on land the airport leases to New College, known as its east campus. In all, New College leases about 30 acres from the airport. Roughly 3 acres appear to be needed for the outfield.
About half of the ballpark, including the infield, and most of right field, would be built on a 3.7-acre rectangle of land that New College owns, on the former site of a car museum.
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The FAA has said no new changes, improvements or expansions can be made until a new lease is negotiated, and a new airport master plan is completed.
After months of waiting, there was a step forward in early May.
FAA approval ... sort of
Records show that on May 6, The Federal Aviation Administration issued a no-objection letter, in which the agency found no safety problems for aircraft or people on the ground, relating to the height of the structures planned for the field.
That included a new foul pole in left field that would be 30 feet high, and a dark rectangular screen known as a batter’s eye in center field, which is 45 feet tall.
However, the FAA also said in that same letter that it was not giving the green light to develop the land. That issue is far more complicated, because it relates to use of 30 acres of the airport’s land, which the airport has leased to New College for decades.
The FAA has found a series of problems with the near century-long lease which expires in 2056, and said it must be updated before any new development begins.
“This review does not constitute a review or approval of the development and is solely a determination with respect to the safe and efficient use of navigable airspace by aircraft and with respect to the safety of persons and property on the ground,” said the FAA letter of May 6, 2026.
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It then referred to a series of conditions laid out in a Feb. 12, 2025, letter from the FAA, “regarding potential proposed changes to the leasehold requirements.”
In that 2025 letter, the FAA said: “If the Authority proposes to do any of the following now or in the future, it must submit a request” to the FAA’s regional airport division office in Orlando, “to ensure the proposed plan aligns with the Airport Master Plan:
• expand/change the leasehold area;
• expand/change the permitted uses of the leasehold area;
• lengthen/change the lease term;
• allow the lessee to make improvements/expansions to existing [remainder of sentence is blank]
• enter into a new agreement with the same lessee for the same or similar purposes;
• enter into a new agreement with a different lessee for the same or similar purposes;
• enter into a new agreement with the same or different lessee for any nonaeronautical purpose;
• and/or sell any portion of the leasehold area/Federal Surplus Property
That FAA letter from February 2025 also said the agency will “require” a proposed redevelopment plan from New College in writing, a leasehold land area survey update, a new fair market value review appraisal, and an updated lease.
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“That makes it very clear that the prerequisites in the FAA’s Feb. 12 letter still apply; lease modifications to meet FAA’s current requirements, master plan updates, etc.,” said retired airport properties director, John Schussler, who reviewed the documents obtained by WUSF.
“Baseball field construction is still not allowed,“ Schussler said.
Fast-growing airport
The Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport has been growing fast, tripling traffic in recent years. The FAA wants to master plan update to see if the airport truly will not need those 30 acres it leases to New College in the future.
The airport is working on a new master plan. But it’s not done yet.
Asked for comment, airport president and CEO Paul Hoback said via email that “New College has shared its plans to continue progress on the baseball field, and they are following the proper permitting and approval process to continue moving forward with that project.”
He did not comment on the timing of a master plan, or any of the steps that remain unfulfilled.
“We support improvements that benefit students and the community, and we’re committed to moving through the FAA process responsibly,” Hoback said.
It’s rare for an airport to sell off any of its surplus land. An attempt by retired airport CEO Rick Piccolo to sell 30 acres to New College was blocked by the FAA in April 2024.
The agency pointed out in 2024 that the airport master plan “is thought to be at least 6 years old and is expected to be outdated, especially in light of the sponsor’s assertions they are the fastest growing airport in the country.”
In March, Hoback told "Florida Matters Live and Local" that he “met with the FAA recently, and we talked about what would be necessary in order for us to potentially sell property, and one of those things is going to be a master plan that we have to do that looks at all of our future growth. And so, I'm going to take in all of those considerations as we look to see what is in the best interest of the airport from a land perspective.”
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Public records show the airport has also commissioned a new appraisal of the airport land. In December 2025, internal correspondence among airport employees indicated the FAA was open to considering a sale of the airport land again.
Building a permanent structure on airport-owned land could lead to problems in 30 years when the lease ends. As written in the 1950s and '60s, the leases allow for all buildings and structures to revert to the airport when the lease ends.
In 2056, a far higher lease rate would likely ensue. New College currently leases the land for about $108,000 per year. The FAA’s April 2024 letter cited the airport’s own proposal, valuing the lease at $1.28 million per year.
“Therefore, it appears a greater benefit results from retaining the property,” the FAA wrote at the time. FAA guidelines state that surplus property “should not be released unless there is no greater benefit from retaining the property.”
New College has removed numerous large trees from the ballfield area and put up signs advertising the “Home of the Mighty Banyans.”
Asked for comment about the plans for the ballpark, a NCF spokesman said he was "looking into it."
In the meantime, the FAA pointed out in its most recent statement to WUSF this week that the “the FAA does not have the authority to determine if construction can begin” but "encourages those with land use authority to consider the agency’s determinations in making zoning and permitting decisions.”
In its May 6 letter to the Sarasota-Bradenton airport, the FAA "reminded" officials that SRQ is a "federally obligated airport and subject to compliance with all FAA Grant Assurances," suggesting that funding could be at risk if the airport does not follow FAA guidance.
