01-28-2014, 03:34 AM
The city is so broke they are now trying to negotaite ANOTHER stadium deal to possibly include a Dowtown Miami spot.
We need to hire a professional contract negotiator not Mickey Mouse Whortiz
David Beckham shares a special digital signature with fans at Facebook's Offices in Hyderabad on October 30, 2013 in London, England. Ian Gavan / GETTY IMAGES
Fullsize previous | nextImage 1 of 2
BY PATRICIA MAZZEI
PMAZZEI@MIAMIHERALD.COM
A downtown Miami soccer stadium could begin to take shape soon once negotiations begin in earnest Tuesday between Miami-Dade County and retired soccer star David Beckham’s investors, who are trying to create a new Major League Soccer team.
Miami Beckham United and Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s office have set a private meeting to run down the investors’ list of up to 30 possible stadium sites, according to the county. Among them is the group’s favored location: county-owned land at PortMiami.
Beckham and league officials may announce their progress on a new expansion franchise as early as next week, according to sources familiar with the talks.
“We anticipate that there’ll be a further commitment to Miami,” Deputy Mayor Chip Iglesias said Monday in a public meeting with two county commissioners.
MLS Commissioner Don Garber said two weeks ago that he expected an announcement on the status of the discussions with Beckham “in early February.” Beckham, who retired from the Los Angeles Galaxy, has an option in his contract to buy a franchise for a discounted $25 million, compared to the market rate of about $100 million.
The league’s expansion model has been to go into cities that build soccer-specific stadiums in their urban core. Gimenez and commissioners have repeatedly said the county would not fund a stadium and any use of public land would require a fair rent payment. Beckham’s investors have hired a Tallahassee lobbyist to go after potential state funds.
Led by New York real-estate developer John Alschuler, the investors have been laying down the groundwork for the negotiations with Miami-Dade since well before county commissioners gave the go-ahead last month for the mayor to proceed.
Since then, Alschuler has met with one commissioner, Xavier Suarez, to go over his concerns and ideas. Alschuler or other group representatives also plan to meet with others on the commission, a spokesman said.
“It’s part of an ongoing dialogue as it relates to the potential stadium and what’s best for soccer in Miami,” said Shawn Warmstein, with the local public relations firm rbb hired by the investors.
Suarez called Tuesday’s public meeting to update his colleague Bruno Barreiro, whose district includes downtown Miami. Neither commissioner is sold on a site yet, they both said.
In December, Suarez asked the investors to consider a site just east of the Miami Intermodal Center, Miami International Airport’s rental-car and mass-transit hub.
On Monday, Suarez told Barreiro — and about 25 people packed inside a conference room at Barreiro’s district office — that he had toured the site with Alschuler. The developer also ran computer simulations of what a stadium might look like at that location, Suarez said.
They concluded that building on the 8˝-acre site would require closing off a chunk of Douglas Road and spending an additional $80 million or so on a parking structure of some sort.
As a result, Suarez sounded more open to the PortMiami site, which he pointed to numerous times on a 3D scale model of downtown Miami he used as a prop. (He had it made before the stadium ever came up to illustrate his vision for lowering Biscayne Boulevard underground and creating a pedestrian esplanade where the thoroughfare is now.)
Suarez said he has met with Armando Christian Perez — the Miami rapper better known as Pitbull — who might be interested in performing at a soccer stadium.
Suarez said he’s still worried a seaport stadium could attract terrorists. “I’m not sold on any” of the sites, he said.
He endorsed erecting pedestrian overpasses over Biscayne Boulevard to make it easier for people to walk across and maybe even connect it to the Metromover. The problem some urban planners have with overpasses is that they don’t bring foot traffic to roadside businesses.
Barreiro remained non-committal about the seaport site. A master plan has long identified the southwest corner of PortMiami as a place for residential or commercial development because it is too shallow for cargo or cruise ships to dock.
“I don’t want to cut away the potential of the seaport in the long haul,” Barreiro said. “For me, [the site] has a substantial amount of hurdles.”
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/01/27/3 ... rylink=cpy (http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/01/27/3896782/miami-dade-county-to-begin-negotiations.html#storylink=cpy)
We need to hire a professional contract negotiator not Mickey Mouse Whortiz
David Beckham shares a special digital signature with fans at Facebook's Offices in Hyderabad on October 30, 2013 in London, England. Ian Gavan / GETTY IMAGES
Fullsize previous | nextImage 1 of 2
BY PATRICIA MAZZEI
PMAZZEI@MIAMIHERALD.COM
A downtown Miami soccer stadium could begin to take shape soon once negotiations begin in earnest Tuesday between Miami-Dade County and retired soccer star David Beckham’s investors, who are trying to create a new Major League Soccer team.
Miami Beckham United and Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s office have set a private meeting to run down the investors’ list of up to 30 possible stadium sites, according to the county. Among them is the group’s favored location: county-owned land at PortMiami.
Beckham and league officials may announce their progress on a new expansion franchise as early as next week, according to sources familiar with the talks.
“We anticipate that there’ll be a further commitment to Miami,” Deputy Mayor Chip Iglesias said Monday in a public meeting with two county commissioners.
MLS Commissioner Don Garber said two weeks ago that he expected an announcement on the status of the discussions with Beckham “in early February.” Beckham, who retired from the Los Angeles Galaxy, has an option in his contract to buy a franchise for a discounted $25 million, compared to the market rate of about $100 million.
The league’s expansion model has been to go into cities that build soccer-specific stadiums in their urban core. Gimenez and commissioners have repeatedly said the county would not fund a stadium and any use of public land would require a fair rent payment. Beckham’s investors have hired a Tallahassee lobbyist to go after potential state funds.
Led by New York real-estate developer John Alschuler, the investors have been laying down the groundwork for the negotiations with Miami-Dade since well before county commissioners gave the go-ahead last month for the mayor to proceed.
Since then, Alschuler has met with one commissioner, Xavier Suarez, to go over his concerns and ideas. Alschuler or other group representatives also plan to meet with others on the commission, a spokesman said.
“It’s part of an ongoing dialogue as it relates to the potential stadium and what’s best for soccer in Miami,” said Shawn Warmstein, with the local public relations firm rbb hired by the investors.
Suarez called Tuesday’s public meeting to update his colleague Bruno Barreiro, whose district includes downtown Miami. Neither commissioner is sold on a site yet, they both said.
In December, Suarez asked the investors to consider a site just east of the Miami Intermodal Center, Miami International Airport’s rental-car and mass-transit hub.
On Monday, Suarez told Barreiro — and about 25 people packed inside a conference room at Barreiro’s district office — that he had toured the site with Alschuler. The developer also ran computer simulations of what a stadium might look like at that location, Suarez said.
They concluded that building on the 8˝-acre site would require closing off a chunk of Douglas Road and spending an additional $80 million or so on a parking structure of some sort.
As a result, Suarez sounded more open to the PortMiami site, which he pointed to numerous times on a 3D scale model of downtown Miami he used as a prop. (He had it made before the stadium ever came up to illustrate his vision for lowering Biscayne Boulevard underground and creating a pedestrian esplanade where the thoroughfare is now.)
Suarez said he has met with Armando Christian Perez — the Miami rapper better known as Pitbull — who might be interested in performing at a soccer stadium.
Suarez said he’s still worried a seaport stadium could attract terrorists. “I’m not sold on any” of the sites, he said.
He endorsed erecting pedestrian overpasses over Biscayne Boulevard to make it easier for people to walk across and maybe even connect it to the Metromover. The problem some urban planners have with overpasses is that they don’t bring foot traffic to roadside businesses.
Barreiro remained non-committal about the seaport site. A master plan has long identified the southwest corner of PortMiami as a place for residential or commercial development because it is too shallow for cargo or cruise ships to dock.
“I don’t want to cut away the potential of the seaport in the long haul,” Barreiro said. “For me, [the site] has a substantial amount of hurdles.”
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/01/27/3 ... rylink=cpy (http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/01/27/3896782/miami-dade-county-to-begin-negotiations.html#storylink=cpy)