Inter Miami hits another snag
Could be in Fort Lauderdale beyond 2021
FORT LAUDERDALE — Soccer legend David Beckham and his Inter Miami team could be calling Fort Lauderdale home well beyond 2021.
It all depends on whether his plans to bring a new Major League Soccer team to Miami get hijacked.
And what played out in Miami on Tuesday doesn’t look good for Beckham and company.
Miami commissioners voted against a plan to lease the city-owned Melreese golf course to the team, saying the no-bid contract with Miami Freedom Park LLC needed to be revised after appraisals come in on the 73-acre parcel.
Miami officials are expected to vote on a new contract Dec. 12, but they may entertain a proposal to kill the deal altogether and put the entire project out to bid.
“We are obviously watching this closely,” Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Steve Glassman said of the
team’s attempt to sign a 100-year lease with the town to the south. “What happens in Miami can dictate what happens in Fort Lauderdale moving forward. We have to just watch and see what plays out in Miami.”
Fort Lauderdale ready for play
If Miami kills the deal, Fort Lauderdale’s Lockhart Stadium likely would be the team’s home base beyond the current twoyear schedule, observers say. The team already has a deal with Fort Lauderdale to lease the property near Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport for 50 years.
Earlier this year, Beckham said the team would play its first two seasons in Fort Lauderdale, with the first season getting under way in March 2020. Plans call for the team to play home games at the new Miami stadium at the start of the 2022 season. The team would continue training at Lockhart, where Beckham United is building an 18,000-seat stadium and 50,000-square-foot training facility.
In return for use of the land, Beckham United will build public sports fields, a trail, playground and park space on the south end of the property.
In June, Beckham’s Miami Freedom Park LLC — which includes brothers Jorge and Jose Mas — filed a draft lease agreement with Miami to enter into a long-term lease for the International Links Melreese Country Club.
The project calls for a 25,000-seat Major League Soccer stadium, hotel, restaurant, retail and entertainment space, a 58-acre public park, tech hub, office park and commercial campus.
The proposed stadium complex would go by the name Freedom Park.
Not giving up
Jorge Mas, managing owner of Inter Miami CF, holds out hope that the Miami deal will get done.
“Inter Miami will make its MLS debut in March 2020,” he said in an email. “The team will play at the new Fort Lauderdale stadium and remains committed to transitioning to its Miami stadium in 2022.”
He added, “We will continue to work as quickly as possible to finalize a lease that will bring a new 58-acre public park, the home stadium for Miami’s MLS team, more than 13,000 jobs, and more than $40 million in tax revenue, while expending zero city taxpayer dollars.”
But Inter Miami has more hurdles ahead.
To make the Miami deal happen, four of Miami’s five commissioners will need to vote in favor of the plan.
Outgoing commissioner Wifredo Gort, who is term limited, will be replaced by the winner of a runoff election on Nov. 19.
That means a newcomer to the commission would be the one voting on the lease contract, not Gort. Voters will choose between former state Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla and auto parts retailer Miguel Angel Gabela.
Toxic waste dump
Tuesday’s meeting was full of strife and controversy, with most of the commissioners saying they could not support the contract as it was written.
Another hurdle: The Melreese Country Club golf course site contains toxic levels of arsenic and other contaminants and will need to be cleaned up.
Jorge Mas told Miami commissioners he expects the remediation to cost under $40 million.
“Taxpayers will bear zero of that expense,” he promised.
The ongoing drama is not lost on Fort Lauderdale officials, including Mayor Dean Trantalis.
He wishes Miami well, but he says Miami’s loss could be Fort Lauderdale’s gain.
“It sounds to me like there are forces at work that fail to see” the benefit of bringing a major league soccer team to town. “When the Mas brothers and David Beckham came to Fort Lauderdale … we were laser focused on making sure we could conclude a deal with those folks. In Miami, they don’t seem to be as focused on the goal as we were in Fort Lauderdale.”
If the Miami deal dies, Fort Lauderdale officials say the team is more than welcome here.
“It’s not unusual for teams to be named for one city and play in another,” Trantalis said. “These are the types of opportunities we in Fort Lauderdale are open to. I just want Inter Miami folks to know they have a welcome home in Fort Lauderdale.”
Glassman is also keeping a keen eye on things.
“It doesn’t sound like it’s a dead deal yet, but it looks like it’s heading in that direction,” he said. “But it would be premature for us to act until we knew this was over in Miami. That being said, we have to be prepared to pick up the slack.”
Glassman argues that Fort Lauderdale, which sits between Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, makes more sense as home base for a soccer team.
“When you look at the sport and the demographics, we are in a much better position than Miami to draw the kind of crowds the team wants to draw,” he said. “People in Palm Beach County aren’t necessarily going to schlep to Miami to see a game. It just makes sense to have the team in Fort Lauderdale.”
But Stephanie Toothaker, lawyer-lobbyist for Beckham United in Fort Lauderdale, says it’s too soon to say what might happen.
“Whether or not they play here longer remains to be seen,” Toothaker said. “I think everyone’s asking that.”
Jacklyne Ramos, a spokeswoman for Inter Miami, also argued it’s too soon to know.
“If it gets approved, we should be in a good place,” she said. “But if it takes months and months, that’s a different story.”