More than a decade ago, activists struggled against — and ultimately defeated — a proposal to build a baseball stadium on Miami’s waterfront. Now community organizers face a new battle: David Beckham’s campaign for a pro soccer stadium at Museum Park.
The Beckham group proposes to fill in the site’s slip and take a 4.2-acre chunk of the new park’s roughly 19 acres of public green space to accommodate a 20,000-seat stadium, according to the Miami Herald. The plan pledges to add 8.5 acres of green space behind the stadium, for a 4.3-acre net gain in public space.
“It’s much more than 20 percent better. It’s 100 percent better,” Beckham’s real estate advisor, John Alschuler said.
But the proposal has generated criticism from some downtown residents. The condo associations of four towers across from the park site oppose the plan.
Some say they bought units in the towers expecting to eventually have an unobstructed view of green space in Museum Park. Those expectations are now threatened.
The site for Beckham’s stadium would be developed by Miami’s Arquitectonica firm. [Miami Herald] – Christopher Cameron