Beckham Group Finally Ready To Purchase Last Piece Of Land For Miami Soccer Stadium
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – The long awaited Major League Soccer franchise in Miami may be preparing to clear its final hurdles in securing land to build a stadium upon.
According to The Miami Herald, the group Miami Beckham United, which is led by international soccer icon David Beckham, is ready to buy the last three acres of land that will give the group a complete site on which to build a new soccer venue.
"The Gimenez administration will be submitting an agenda item for next Tuesday's Board of County Commissioners meeting regarding the sale of land the Beckham group would need to complete their purchase of property to assemble a stadium," said Miami-Dade County communications director Michael Hernandez.
It has long been known that these three acres were the last puzzle piece needed for plans to move forward, but Beckham's group did not seem eager to complete the sale until now.
That's because Todd Boehly, a sports mogul with deep pockets, recently joined the ownership group to help bankroll the project.
Boehly is part-owner of MLB's Los Angeles Dodgers.
Miami-Dade County had been ready to sell since Miami Beckham United began to purchase the adjacent land for the future stadium site.
Now Beckham's group is hoping for a quick vote of approval so plans to build the actual stadium can move forward.
One hurdle in plans for a rapid progression is Miami-Dade Commissioner Audrey Edmonson, whose district includes the stadium site.
"I've got to see what my community says," Edmonson told the Herald.
She wants Miami Beckham United to fulfill a promise to reach back out to the Overtown community before the prospective sale goes to the commission.
"They made the promise to come back to the community," Edmonson said. "That's something I expect them to do."
The group held a town hall in Overtown back in 2015.
The 2014 public launch for Beckham's Miami franchise feels like a long, long time ago to many South Florida soccer fans who have been patiently waiting for some good news on the topic.
It was late in 2015 when the Overtown site was first viewed as a potential home to the stadium, but things have progressed at a very slow pace since then.
Both Beckham's group and local soccer fans are hoping things began to move at a much more rapid pace now.