David Beckham‘s team of investors has acquired a site in Miami to build a new stadium for Major League Soccer franchise Miami Beckham United. The idea is to put together a 9-acre plot for the soccer team; some county land still has to be purchased at what the group says it wants to buy at “fair market value”.
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Plans for football stadiums on publicly owned lots on the Miami’s island port and in downtown Miami have been rejected.
After several failed attempts to build in other parts of the city, the Beckham group thought they were close to a deal for land owned by the Miami-Dade School Board in Little Havana.
Sources informed NBC 6 that Miami Beckham United Group was closing in on a mix of private and county land in Overtown to break ground on the stadium. Two previous locations at PortMiami and next to the AmericanAirlines Arena fell through, and Beckham representatives spent the last month warning that a third site next to Marlins Park was collapsing as well.
Beckham’s designs on bringing a team to Miami have remained largely on hold since he exercised a contract option to purchase an MLS club in February 2014 for $25m, a discounted franchise fee negotiated when he signed with the LA Galaxy in 2007.
The 20-team MLS plans to grow to 24 teams by 2020 with expansion teams already announced for Minnesota, Atlanta, and Los Angeles.
“David [Beckham], Simon [Fuller], Marcelo [Claure] and Tim [Leiweke] would like to thank Mayors Gimenez and Regalado, Commissioners at the City and County, and Superintendent Carvalho for their leadership and willingness to assist us throughout this process”.
Could the fourth time be the charm in David Beckham’s quest for a soccer stadium in Miami? It also returns Beckham to the negotiating table with Gimenez after dropping a plan for county ownership of the Little Havana stadium in favor of the Miami-Dade school system owning it.
As we have said, this will be the most responsible stadium development in Miami history.
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“While Miami Beckham United is still hopeful we can secure the necessary private properties adjacent to the Marlins Park site, we are faced with the fact that some owners are not interested in selling or are seeking completely unreasonable prices”.
