Billion-dollar game
Beckham and partners return to Miami City Hall chasing a big goal
South Florida’s Major League Soccer team has drawn up a big real estate play that would radically transform a golf course in the center of Miami-Dade County into a 73-acre commercial and professional sports complex, and its goal is in sight.
In a billion-dollar game, several players stand ready on the pitch. There’s a celebrity footballer and a local billionaire with plans to bring professional soccer to Miami along with more shops, restaurants and hotel rooms, a supportive mayor with national aspirations and a City Commission full of swing votes with power to squeeze more from the no-bid deal — or tank it altogether when it goes to a vote next month.
The scheduled Feb. 23 date at Dinner Key is the closest retired footballer David Beckham and his local partners, MasTec executives Jorge and Jose Mas, have come in nine years to building a stadium in Miami for their franchise, Club Internacional de Fútbol Miami, or Inter Miami CF. They want to close the city’s only municipal golf course to construct what they are calling Miami Freedom Park, with the stadium standing alongside a hotel, playing fields, a park and a mall bigger than Brickell City Centre.
It is shaping up to be a crucial moment for Inter Miami, not to mention professional sports and South Florida commercial real estate. But before anything can move forward, the Mas brothers and Beckham — with the help of Mayor Francis Suarez — must get the blessing of Miami’s City Commission and clean up any lingering doubts about issues such as toxic soil, traffic and the return on investment for Miami’s taxpayers.
Complicating matters, they need four of Miami’s five commissioners to sign off on the agreement — and one has already promised to vote no.
“This is far from a done deal,” said Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla, whose district includes the potential stadium site.
‘IT’S GOING TO BE A MONEYMAKER’
The details that could make or break Beckham’s Miami dreams are contained in a 99-year lease agreement, a complex package that spans four separate documents and more than 500 pages. City and team officials have been negotiating since 2019, after voters authorized administrators to skip a public bid to lease the city’s golf course and hash out an agreement with the team. Taxpayers have spent at least $3.29 million on outside lawyers.
Officials for the team — which has played home
It’s beautiful coming home to green. We don’t want any more concrete.
Part-time Miami resident Jacqueline Shepherd
games its first two seasons in Inter Miami’s DRV PNK Stadium in Fort Lauderdale — tout the project as a crucial step toward building a professional soccer infrastructure and player pathway in South Florida.
“Miami Freedom Park, anchored by its world class soccer stadium and village, will provide the aspiration to the youth of our community and the next generation of soccer stars to play for their beloved City in one of the best soccerspecific stadiums in the country,” Richard Perez, an attorney from Holland & Knight who represents Inter Miami’s ownership, said in a statement.
The complicated legal documents call for a privately financed development, where the owners would fund cleanup of contaminated Melreese golf course and the construction of all of Miami Freedom Park, including underground utility work and the creation of a passive park with a walking path. The soccer group has touted the proposal’s financial benefits to the city — millions in new property taxes, lease payments to the city and $25 million in cash contributions for improving a proposed 58-acre park onsite and advancing the city’s unrelated Baywalk-Riverwalk project.
One aspect of the agreement likely to receive scrutiny: Even though Miami residents are feeling the pressure of skyrocketing real estate values and rent prices, the minimum rent in the deal remains $3.57 million, the same as it was when the project was first unveiled in 2018.
“It’s going to be a moneymaker,” said Robert Orban of international corporate real estate advisory firm Cresa. “I’d hate to see the city get kind of a raw deal. They’re probably looking at that as an absolute floor, which is not very much. That’s a deal that is very favorable for the developer.”
Orban roughly estimated Melreese’s land to be worth between $200 million and $250 million in a market that has remained hot, meaning the proposed rent floor would be little more than 1% of Orban’s estimated value — a figure he said was “very low.”
The proposal calls for the team to pay a lower rent during construction, but once the commercial portion is operating, the city would receive the greater of the minimum rent or 5% of all gross revenues. Michael Fay, managing director of real estate Avison Young’s Miami office, said the revenue-sharing provision is a positive. Still, he said, today’s increased values need to be taken into account.
“Today, the values have changed dramatically. Everything has gone up in value — real estate, the consumer price index, inflation, lots of things,” said Fay, who supports the project overall. “That is something that either needs to be readdressed or looked at in a different light.”
Miami-Dade real estate prices remain high. At least one other large parcel in Miami-Dade County, about 115.7 acres near Calder Casino, is expected to be sold for $291 million, according to the South Florida Business Journal.
On first blush, after reading details of the deal first reported by the Herald, Díaz de la Portilla said he doesn’t think the lease’s financials are good enough yet for the city and, in particular, his district.
“I want money for our parks, parks in Allapattah,” he told the Herald.
With four votes needed, and Commissioner Manolo Reyes a hard no, Díaz de la Portilla and the city’s other three commissioners — Joe Carollo, Christine King and Ken Russell — have greater influence over negotiations. Suarez, the current president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, is a champion of the deal but does not have a vote.
Díaz de la Portilla suggested new appraisals might be needed to assess a fair market rent. He said he’s not sure about a provision that guarantees the city 5% of proceeds from the sale of the stadium’s naming rights that exceed $8 million.
“I want soccer in Miami,” he said. But, “it’s got to be a good deal for Miami.”
The Mas brothers, sons of the late Cuban exile leader Jorge Mas Canosa, have defended the rent floor since 2018, noting the land is contaminated and lacks the proper zoning for commercial development. Their company, MasTec, was among the biggest contributors in Miami’s elections last year, giving $97,000 to Carollo’s campaign and $10,000 to a political committee supporting King. In October, a committee tied to Díaz de la Portilla, who was not up for reelection, received $50,000 from MasTec. A Suarez political committee received $25,000 from the company in 2017.
Perez, the Inter Miami attorney, cited two peerreviewed appraisals that determined fair market rent would be $2.28 million. He said considering the team’s commitment to put $36 million toward environmental remediation and $65 million toward infrastructure improvements, the city is not giving the team a break on rent.
“Over the term of the lease, Miami Freedom
Park will pay the city of Miami in excess of $4.2 billion in total annual rent,” Perez said. “This figure does not include the significant tax revenues generated by the city as a result of the proposed development.“
The proposal includes 400,000 square feet of office space, raising questions about the demand in a corporate world with more work-from-home policies. Orban, who mostly represents tenants in commercial leases, said Coral Gables and Doral are “swimming in space, and vacancies are at record highs in both submarkets.” So, hype about opening a “tech hub” being marketed for Miami Freedom Park might not match the right kind of demand.
“There’s excitement about new-to-market tenants, such as Microsoft,” he said. “That’s really affecting downtown, West Palm Beach and Brickell, with sexy waterfront views. Other than that, supply exceeds demand in general.”
On the other hand, some say the growth of Miami’s tech sector could jibe with the development. Real estate analyst Ana Bozovic said it’s important to note the increased flow of people and capital to South Florida.
“If we believe the thesis that South Florida will keep
I want soccer in Miami. It’s got to be a good deal for Miami.
Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla
adding population, then it stands to reason that demand for office will just grow,” she said.
HOW TO DEAL WITH THAT TOXIC SOIL?
Another obstacle potentially standing in Inter Miami’s way lies just below the surface of Melreese’s rolling fairways and verdant greens — which were built over an ash dump for an old municipal incinerator.
The city contended with the worst of the contamination in 2005 when buried ash with dangerous levels of arsenic, lead and other contaminants were found directly south of the golf course, at Grapeland Heights Park. A $10 million cleanup, including hauling away 80,000 tons of soil, was needed to build the water park, and millions would need to be spent at Melreese to deal with contaminants related to incinerated rubbish and other chemicals that have accumulated over time.
“Every golf course known to humanity uses chemicals to make it a beautiful golf course,” said attorney Howard Nelson, head of law firm Bilzin Sumberg’s environmental practice.
Inter Miami is proposing to dig up soil across 131 acres north of Grapeland Heights Park. Mas has estimated the cleanup will cost around $36 million. Nelson, who reviewed the environmental remediation section of the proposed lease documents at the Herald’s request, called the figure a reasonable estimate.
“There’s nothing undoable in what they’re proposing,” said Nelson, who is not affiliated with the project.
Nelson said the site plan allows the developers to shift around toxic soil and cap it with either concrete or two feet of clean fill. It may not be necessary to remove truckloads of contaminated soil, an expensive process that can easily run up the price tag. There can always be surprises once crews start digging, Nelson said, but Inter Miami’s estimate is conservative and not likely to balloon too much.
The developers’ projected timelines might be a bit ambitious, Nelson said. Inter Miami’s ownership expects to receive approval for the remediation from the county’s Department of Environmental and Resource Management (DERM) in about 12 months. That would be fast, given the county’s stringent requirements.
The expensive cleanup required to build Miami Freedom Park has been a top concern for detractors of the project. But Nelson said that in reading the proposal, he didn’t see ways for Inter Miami to leave the city with a big bill for remediation.
“I didn’t see anything on the ability to cost shift in the environmental provisions,” he said. “I think it’s fully appropriate that the developer shoulders the cost. While the city will get substantial benefit in a variety of ways from the conversion, the people who will really be benefiting are the developers.”
NEIGHBORHOOD CONCERNS
Though Melreese is located across from Miami International Airport and directly north of the Dolphin Expressway, it is also immediately west of a residential neighborhood, and Gladys Fuentes is simply worried about the peace and quiet.
The 76-year-old lives about a mile away from Melreese, which she hopes will stay a golf course in the end. She said the deal is a land grab that will turn a city park over to private enterprise and create traffic snarls.
“We’re just going to have more headaches, more traffic jams, because there’s more congestion,” she told the Herald.
The lease documents contain a preliminary transportation management plan for game days that includes closing off Northwest 37th Avenue, a major artery next to Melreese, between 14th and 19th streets. According to the plan, up to seven nearby intersections would need to be controlled by police before and after matches. Inter Miami plays 17 home games.
Some of the ideas in the final plan would require cooperation with city or county departments that still need to be consulted — shorter headways and more Metrorail vehicles on game days, and expanded service for Miami’s cityrun trolley, for example.
One county agency, the Miami-Dade Aviation Department, has expressed concerns with airport safety regulations and road congestion. Northwest 37th and 42nd avenues are main roads leading into the airport, causing county aviation officials to worry about traffic causing delays or even cancellations at Miami International Airport.
The county aviation department outlined concerns in late 2019 and early 2020, public records show. This month, an aviation spokesman said Inter Miami has yet to respond to the concerns and the department has not yet met with the soccer developers.
“It’s an area that is so congested,” said MiamiDade Commissioner Rebeca Sosa, whose district includes the airport and who has warned the soccer plan could cause headaches for the airport. She said a stadium itself could be workable but has concerns about the mall, office complex and entertainment spot sought by the Beckham group.
“I think it’s too much,” she said.
The lead-up to the vote is expected to draw praise and criticism from a range of green-space advocates, neighborhood activists, golfers and soccer fans.
Jacqueline Shepherd, who lives in unincorporated north Miami-Dade and splits time between South Florida and Canada, said the region has enough stadiums. She’d prefer to have a slice of green welcome her when she’s leaving the airport.
“It’s beautiful coming home to green,” she said. “We don’t want any more concrete.”
Julio Caballero, a Kendall resident and co-founder of one of Inter Miami’s support groups, focused on the deal’s benefits while saying he’s confident the team will get four votes.
“Melreese is currently a golf course accessible only to golfers and it sits on a toxic land. [Miami Freedom Park] will include even more public land open to all residents and tourists,” Caballero told the Herald in a written exchange. “Very important that it will be 100% privately funded. The location makes sense and the residents and the city will benefit from this project.”
Miami Herald staff writers Rebecca San Juan and Douglas Hanks contributed to this report.