Construction goes on for the new Red Sox stadium at 11581 Daniels Parkway in Fort Myers, Fla., on Friday September 2, 2011. The JetBlue Park will seat around 11,000 people about 3,000 more than City of Palms Park in Fort Myers, Fla., and has an expected completion date of January 2012. Photo by Michele AnneLouise Cohen - Naples Daily News

FORT MYERS -Dry conditions earlier this summer helped ensure that work on the Boston Red Sox’s new spring training complex has remained on schedule despite recent heavy rains.

Conditions at the job site are soggy in spots but the $77.9 million project is on schedule and should be completed in mid-January, said Bob Taylor, Lee County’s project construction manager.

“The extended dry period allowed us to get the underground drainage system in place so now it doesn’t get too wet for work,” he said. “You can’t work on the roof in a downpour, but we can do most work on the ground when it rains.

“They pour any concrete early in the morning so it will set by afternoon, and as we get the roofs installed it gets easier,” he said. “The rain can have some effect on the work, but it’s minimal.”

The Red Sox are scheduled to move into the spring training complex, JetBlue Park, in February. Located on Daniels Parkway near Southwest Florida International Airport, the park’s main stadium will seat about 11,000 fans.

Recent rain might even help one area of the project. Workers recently sprigged with grass three of the complex’s six outlying practice baseball fields.

Two of the other practice fields will be sprigged in the next few weeks. The final practice field, used as a construction staging area until recently, will be sprigged or covered with sod once underground drainage is installed and other preparation work is completed.

Workers will place sod on the stadium’s main ball field in late September, Taylor said. Drainage pipes have been installed under the field, which soon will receive four inches of stone and 12 inches of peat mixture to serve as a growing medium for the new grass.

The grass sod will come in 3-foot rolls that can be quickly unrolled onto the field. Installing it in September will allow the sod to take hold by February.

By the numbers

Materials used for JetBlue Park

• 3.3 miles of underground storm drainage pipe

• 385,000 cubic yards of fill

• 27,000 tons of top soil for seven baseball fields

• 16,000 tons of gravel

• 54,000 linear feet of drainage pipe

• 8,000 cubic yards of poured concrete

• 125,000 tons of concrete block

• 550 tons of reinforcing steel

• 893 tons of structural steel

Source: Manhattan Kraft Construction Inc.

Taylor said the project reached another milestone recently when crews poured concrete for the field’s lower seating level.

“We just finished that last week, so the seating bowl is now complete,” he said.

Typically, about 200 workers are on-site daily, Taylor said. Some crews are now digging trenches with backhoes and installing piping for electrical infrastructure. Others have been sealing concrete to prepare walkways and other areas for surfacing and finish work.

Workers also have been installing panels on the stadium’s awning, which is designed to resemble nearby cypress woods. Some of the awning’s supports are set at slight angles to mimic tree trunks in a forest, while the top metal framework undulates like the top of a cypress forest canopy.