‘Ecstatic’ Beckham got the OK for Miami soccer stadium. Next step: vote on zoning approval

David Beckham’s plans for a soccer stadium cleared its biggest political hurdle in Miami this week, but more votes and regulatory approvals await before the celebrity mogul and his partners can start construction on the 73-acre site near Miami International Airport.

With Thursday night’s approval of the 99-year lease of the city’s Melreese golf course, the Inter Miami owners have control of the public land they want to transform into the stadium and a commercial complex, with an adjoining park.

READ MORE: Miami International Airport raises ‘safety concerns’ over Beckham soccer stadium plan

But the partnership, led by local corporate executives Jorge and José Mas, still must secure city zoning approval and permission from aviation authorities to construct a stadium so close to MIA’s runways.

Miami-Dade County owns MIA, and airport administrators say the Beckham group agreed to height reductions of the stadium design that complies with county regulations. In an April 20 memo, Miami-Dade’s director of aviation planning, José Ramos, said the stadium’s 120-foot height limit conformed to county safety code for land around the airport and that the Federal Aviation Administration has cleared the project.

But that was before city commissioners modified the proposed lease deal to include a requirement that the soccer group meet with leaders of the University of Miami to pursue expanding the stadium to also accommodate UM football games.

That would mean adding 15,000 seats to the planned 25,000-seat stadium, but new plans have not yet been presented to show how a larger venue would change heights in areas that MIA flagged as concerns.

READ MORE: UM athletic director open to exploring Hurricanes football at Miami Freedom Park

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said Friday any height conflicts will get addressed during a zoning process where county and city officials will make final recommendations on whether the soccer group’s construction plans comply with local rules on building and development. Miami commissioners would vote again on zoning approvals for the site.

“We’re going into the zoning phase. This is the point where we talk about these things,” said Suarez, who helped secure support for the 4 to 1 vote approving the no-bid lease.

With the group already pursuing zoning changes needed for construction, Suarez said he expects final approvals to be secured within months and well before the end of this year. The partnership wants the stadium ready for its first game by May 2025, Suarez said.

READ MORE: Miami approves Beckham’s soccer stadium lease in a major victory for Inter Miami

Beckham has been pursuing a stadium deal in Miami-Dade since 2013 — a quest complicated by the partnership’s abandoning of a stadium plan in Miami’s Overtown for the Melreese site once the Mas brothers joined the venture in 2017.

Beckham didn’t attend the commission meeting. Suarez said he missed a call from the retired soccer star after the vote, but reached him by phone later.

“He was ecstatic,” Suarez said. “I thanked him for staying committed to the city.”

The group had successfully lobbied Miami leaders in 2018 to hold a referendum on the stadium negotiations for building the Miami Freedom Park and Soccer Village. It passed, giving Miami the go-ahead to negotiate the exclusive lease on a golf course that sits on city parkland off State Road 836.

The Miami agreement also gives them permission to build a shopping center, office complex and 750-room hotel on land that wasn’t open to bids from other real estate developers. The new terms of the lease require the soccer group to pay Miami 6% of the gross revenue from the land, with a minimum payment of about $4 million a year.

Beckham’s partnership agreed to convert 58 acres of the Melreese site into a park, and pay $25 million for Miami to create new parkland and public spaces elsewhere in the city.

Commissioner Ken Russell, a Democratic U.S. senate candidate who voted for the deal, said a portion of the money will be added to the budget needed to transform a former landfill on Virginia Key into 160 acres of new playing fields. The money won’t be enough to fund the project, but will pay for design work, Russell said.

“The city has a shortage of parks as it is,” he said. “But we really have a shortage of large playing fields.”

This story was originally published April 29, 2022 at 7:22 PM.