‘Very rude’ — Miami-Dade leaders attack lawyer’s push for UM stadium in Tropical Park
■ Miami mogul John Ruiz wants a University of Miami football stadium at Miami-Dade’s Tropical Park. County commissioners call it a bad idea they want to die.
The mostly online campaign to bring a University of Miami stadium to Tropical Park got real enough for Miami-Dade County commissioners that they’ve started attacking it.
“We need to stop that cold,” Commissioner Javier Souto, whose district includes the county park, said at an online public meeting Thursday with other commissioners. “My recommendation is nip it in the bud.”
It was the first official county proceeding for a proposal by Coral Gables lawyer and mogul John
Ruiz to convert part of Tropical Park into a stadium complex for UM’s football team, which plays games at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.
The University of Miami isn’t part of the proposal. Ruiz, a reported billionaire who runs a health-insurance claims company, is pitching the privatelyfunded stadium as a way to both revitalize the area around Tropical Park and give the Hurricanes a closer home field for games.
Opponents, including commissioners at Thursday’s meeting, call the plan a misguided effort to sacrifice county park space for another Miami stadium.
“In every aspect, this is probably a bad idea,” said Oliver Gilbert, the commission’s vice-chair.
Ruiz initially proposed a Coral Gables stadium that fizzled before shifting to Tropical Park, a popular recreational destination with lakes, athletic fields, an equestrian facility and picnic areas.
Miami-Dade commissioners would need to approve a stadium deal, but Ruiz wants a countywide referendum to support his plan.
Though Miami voters approved a referendum to build a soccer stadium at a city-owned golf course in 2018, Commissioner René Garcia said he doubted voters would endorse the Ruiz plan.
“I don’t think there’s an appetite for this,” Garcia said.
Ruiz doesn’t appear to be lobbying the county for the effort, but he is waging a campaign on social media — an effort that got mentioned in the meeting.
“This person is very active on Twitter,” Commissioner Eileen Higgins said. “And actually is very very rude to many of our residents on Twitter as well.”
On Twitter, Ruiz thanks supporters of the plan and also fires back at critics. “If you don’t like the area you can always live elsewhere,” he wrote on Sept. 27 to someone who said the plan wasn’t popular with locals. “Houses will sell for more so you can even profit.”
Ruiz was not immediately available for an interview after the meeting, but did respond to some of the commissioners’ comments as they shared on social media.
“Our residents?” Ruiz wrote in response to Higgins. “As in the people around Tropical Park? This is a county vote.”