David Beckham's MLS team unveil plans for $966m stadium in Miami
David Beckham’s nascent Major League Soccer club have unveiled plans for their new $966m stadium ahead of their entrance to the league for the 2020 season.
Inter Miami have shared artist’s renditions of the sprawling commercial and stadium complex which they expect to be completed by 2022, including such glitzy flourishes as a rooftop bar and palm trees on the roof.
Related: David Beckham's MLS stadium site contaminated by arsenic, says report
In the meantime Inter Miami will play in Lockhart is where the MLS’ Miami Fusion played from 1998-2001, eventually folding because of poor attendance.
The delay is due in large part to an analysis first reported by the Miami Herald that found arsenic contamination reaching more than twice the legal limit and hazardous debris in surface-level soil samples at the Melreese golf course, where people have played for more than 50 years.
The environmental firm EE&G, hired by Inter Miami, took more than 140 soil samples in recent months. Apart from the arsenic, it found barium and lead levels above legal limits
“Organized chaos,” Inter Miami sporting director Paul McDonough said this week as he took a look around the site of the now-demolished Lockhart Stadium where work on the new complex is happening 12 hours a day, seven days a week. “But we’ll be ready.”
At any given time, there are about 225 workers on the job site – the whereabouts of all of them tracked with an app that gets data from a chip attached to the back of their hard hats. If there’s lightning in the area, work gets halted for 30 minutes until the cell passes. And that’s a big deal, because even with next season still months away every minute counts.
Nothing is ready, yet – but it will be.
A post shared by Inter Miami CF (@intermiamicf) on Oct 22, 2019 at 10:02am PDT
“The way it was built out, we’re thinking of the athlete first from the minute they walk in,” said Jacklyne Ramos, the team’s vice president of communications as she stood inside what will be the building containing the locker room and other key spaces for the team. “The main stadium, that’s for the games. Where we are now, this is where they’ll live.”
The Associated Press got a tour on Monday of what will be Inter Miami’s inaugural home. The shell of the team’s headquarters – locker rooms, equipment room, dining area, coach’s office, what will become the sports performance lab, the academy workout facilities and more – is coming together. Every detail has been thought of; the walk from the players’ parking lot to the building will be short, the training room will be small (“I don’t want them comfortable in there,” McDonough said), and an area will be built just off the outside wall of the locker room to air out cleats after training sessions.
“They’ll never be in the building,” McDonough said. “Boots can stink.”
Beckham spent about five years trying to get MLS back in South Florida, and after many sites were considered – there’s still plans for the team to eventually play the stadium whose renditions were teased on Instagram on Tuesday.
A coach will be hired soon. A roster is coming. There are plans for a soft opening a few weeks before the season and then, when the first match is played, all the mess and chaos will be forgotten.
“I wasn’t ready for this. I’m still not,” McDonough said. “I’m learning as we go. Conduits, positioning of poles, there’s so many things that you don’t realize until you live it. But that’s what it takes and we’re getting it done.
