Beckham announces Overtown site for soccer stadium – Miami Herald

David Beckham’s two-year odyssey to bring a major league soccer franchise to Miami may finally be coming to a fruitful end.

On Friday, the team confirmed it has secured a contract to purchase an entire privately owned block in Overtown just west of Interstate 95 and a few blocks north of the Miami River. The team has also secured a letter of intent from Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez to negotiate the purchase of most the block immediately to the south, owned by the county’s water and sewer department. The eastern portion of that block is owned by a private company.

“Miami Beckham United has secured a stadium development site at 650 Northwest 8th Street in the City of Miami’s historic Overtown neighborhood,” the team said in a statement. “We intend to create an assemblage of private and County-controlled land totaling approximately 9 acres in Miami’s urban core, within walking distance of multiple public transit options and the up-and-coming Miami River District.

It’s believed this is the first time since Miami Beckham United announced plans to establish a franchise in Miami that the team has had a contract to purchase a site. 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.

But in Overtown, “the private properties, which comprise the majority of the land, are under contract and we intend to purchase the County land at fair market value pending approval of our site [Saturday] by the MLS Board of Governors,” the team said.

Indeed, the team’s announcement comes just one day ahead of a meeting of the Major League Soccer Board of Governors that the Beckham group had identified as a crucial deadline. On Wednesday, MLS Commissioner Don Garber indicated that he preferred Beckham’s new site to Little Havana, where the team was negotiating a deal that would have exempted them from paying property taxes by ceding the land to the Miami-Dade School Board.

The team says it still plans to craft a partnership with the school board, but this time, the team and Gimenez say the property will be privately owned — and there is not talk this time about holding a dicey voter referendum.

“Miami Beckham United would pay fair market value for the property that is currently managed by the Miami-Dade County Water and Sewer Department,” Gimenez said in a statement. “The purchase is part of Miami Beckham United’s effort to assemble land to eventually construct a privately-financed, privately-owned Major League Soccer stadium in the urban core of our world-class community. Because the stadium would be privately-owned, Miami Beckham United would be responsible for paying property taxes annually like any other private entity in Miami-Dade County.”

The land the team has contracted to purchase includes a four-acre site owned by Windsor Investment Holdings. It’s unclear if New Miami River View LLC, which owns four blocks in the southern block sought by the Beckham group, has been approached about selling.

Regardless, the team still has far to go before putting a shovel in the ground. Beckham’s group negotiate to purchase the county land, and then seek approval by the Miami-Dade County Commission. The team also plans to seek approval from the city of Miami to close Northwest Seventh Street, which runs east and west between the two blocks where the stadium would be built.

It’s also likely that the team will need to work with the city’s planning and zoning department to build on land that borders on a public housing complex and the historic Spring Garden neighborhood. The team says it plans to “engage nearby businesses and residents as we develop our stadium design and take steps to enhance the neighborhood.”

News that Beckham was looking at the Overtown site began to spread this week. On Friday, Mayor Carlos Gimenez and his chief of staff, Alex Ferro, began briefing county commissioners early in the morning on the pending deal, and team representatives called Miami’s city manager, according to two sources familiar with the talks.

The briefings signaled the first official act involving Beckham’s latest stadium deal, and reflects an abrupt change in a fast-moving chase of land next to Marlins Park in Little Havana. 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.

Both would have provided the same shelter from local property taxes, and Gimenez saw the abrupt change as a political move by Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado. Regalado’s daughter, Raquel Regalado, sits on the school board and is challenging Gimenez in the county mayoral race. Attempts to reach Miami’s mayor on his cell phone have been unsuccessful, but City Manager Daniel Alfonso said he told a Beckham representative that “we’ll work with you.”

“We’re not going to obstruct anything,” he said.

This post was updated to describe the Miami-Dade land as owned by the county Water and Sewer Department.