Beckham Picks Downtown Miami Site for Soccer Stadium

MIAMI—Miami Beckham United has picked the spot for the new Major League Soccer (MLS) stadium. The ownership group, led by David Beckham, Marcelo Claure, and Simon Fuller, settled on a long-underutilized Florida East Coast (FEC) railway slip along Biscayne Boulevard to build its privately-funded stadium.

This is a strategic area for the Magic City, seeing as it's the last dormant stretch of Downtown Miami's waterfront. Once the stadium is completed, this area will be home to green spaces, public plazas and promenades, and, of course, a soccer stadium that's home to an MLS team.

As part of the project, Museum Park will expand to include the reclaimed FEC slip and Parcel B, the empty plot of land behind the American Airlines Arena. That totals a net gain of more than four acres of public park space—and ultimately results in a park that spans 23 acres of contiguous green space and connects Pérez Art Museum Miami and the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science with Bayfront Park.

“I've always said that our team will be the people's club—another downtown amenity that makes the entire Miami-Dade community proud,” says Beckham. “By expanding Museum Park with new public spaces anchored by world-class art and science museums and a world-class soccer club, we'll be activating the waterfront on a year-round basis.”

The team's 20,000-seat soccer venue will feature a north-south orientation along Biscayne Boulevard so that the majority of newly-created park space is along the waterfront and resulting in maximum connectivity with Downtown Miami and nearby public transit links. With an average of 20 to 25 events hosted each year, the soccer venue will attract as many as 500,000 people to Downtown Miami annually.

One of the keywords for this project is privately-funded. Miami Beckham United has vowed to fund the soccer venue privately. That means zero dollars from the City of Miami or Miami-Dade County. The owners will cover the complete cost of all aspects of the project, including reclaiming the FEC slip and expanding Museum Park. The team is committed to paying fair market value for use of the land and to launching a youth soccer academy in Miami-Dade County.

“My hometown of Miami is ready to welcome a professional soccer team capable of attracting the world's best players, and that's exactly what David, Simon, and I will deliver,” says Claure. “Our plans to transform the FEC slip and Parcel B into soccer grounds and a public park will give Miami fans a chance to experience the thrill of the sport right in the heart of downtown. I'm looking forward to the day when I can watch a major soccer match without leaving Miami.”

A proposed inter-local agreement that will transfer the FEC slip and surrounding land from the City of Miami to Miami-Dade County, in exchange for the County's transfer of Parcel B to City hands, made the site selection possible. Now it's up to the Miami voters, who will vote on the proposed agreement in a referendum held over the coming months.

“Museum Park has the potential to be one of the country's great urban spaces along the water,” says John Alschuler, strategic advisor to Miami Beckham United. “Our vision creates an expanded public park and completes the downtown Miami waterfront, allowing pedestrians to travel by foot from Brickell Avenue all the way north to the new art and science museums. We look forward to working with the citizens and City of Miami to help shape this idea into a firm plan for a new, enhanced Museum Park.”

Stay tuned for an exclusive interview with Beckham in next week's GlobeSt.com.