Crucial vote for Beckham’s Inter Miami stadium complex in Miami pushed back one month

Update: The meeting has been rescheduled again, this time for 10 a.m. April 1.

For the third time since February, a crucial Miami City Commission vote on the plan to build a massive soccer stadium and commercial complex on the city’s only publicly owned golf course has been postponed.

Officials say the delay was due to a problem with placing a public notice for the meeting in a Spanish-language newspaper, though interviews with commissioners suggest the four votes necessary to move the project forward might not have been easily won on Thursday.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez announced the postponement in a Wednesday afternoon memo, a day before the commission was scheduled to hear a presentation on the plan for Miami Freedom Park. He called a new special meeting for 10 a.m. April 7 to consider the legal agreements that would allow the city to lease Melreese golf course to the owners of Inter Miami for 99 years to build a stadium, hotel, office park, shops and a 58-acre park.

The vote is a critical step necessary for Inter Miami’s owners, including retired footballer David Beckham and businessmen Jorge and Jose Mas, to field their Major League Soccer franchise in Miami.

In his memo, Suarez did not give a reason for pushing back the hearing. A spokesperson for Suarez told the Miami Herald there were concerns over the public notices that were published in local newspapers because the meeting had recently been pushed back a day, from Wednesday to Thursday. The justification was echoed by Inter Miami’s attorney on the deal, Holland and Knight attorney Richard Perez, who said the team wanted to be as transparent as possible in publicizing the hearing.

But City Attorney Victoria Méndez suggested the meeting could have proceeded under the city’s code.

“My recommendation was to reset, though it was a notice nuance we could have overcome,” she said.

Four of Miami’s five commissioners would need to approve the lease documents in order for Miami Freedom Park’s plans to advance. One commissioner has already pledged to vote no, making the remaining four swing votes with power to squeeze more from the deal or kill it. On Wednesday evening, two commissioners said they still had much to review regarding the Miami Freedom Park proposal.

A spokesperson for Commission Chairwoman Christine King said she “is continuing to review every single aspect of this massive project with many moving parts.” Commissioner Joe Carollo said the noticing issue concerned him, but he also did not have the information necessary to vote on the deal. Carollo, who in the past pressured private businesses seeking leases of public land to pay more, said he still needs to research the deal’s finances before feeling comfortable to vote.

“I need the facts to be able to negotiate,” he said.

Opponents have criticized some of the terms of the agreement, including a rent floor that hasn’t changed since the project was first proposed in 2018. Supporters argue the tax windfall will benefit local governments and the city will receive a privately funded complex, including a public park, on environmentally remediated land.

This story was originally published March 9, 2022 at 4:52 PM.