Jorge Mas has ambitions for a soccer complex with room for a youth academy, restaurant and retailGETTY IMAGES
Miami Beckham United co-Owners Jorge and Jose Mas on Monday met with the city's top administrator about building an MLS stadium on the city-owned Melreese golf course, "floating a 180-acre alternative" near Miami Int'l Airport as Jorge Mas is "raising doubts about long-standing plans to build the stadium on nine acres in Overtown," according to Hanks & Flechas of the MIAMI HERALD. Miami City Manager Emilio Gonzalez said that the discussion involved "how the Melreese park could mesh with the Mas ambitions for a sprawling soccer complex, with room for a youth academy, restaurant and retail and an adjoining 'tech village' office complex." With "far more real estate in Melreese" compared to Overtown, the Beckham group "would have enough room for parking garages, practice soccer fields and possibly a stadium large enough to accommodate" the Univ. of Miami. However, "careful language" from Gonzalez "hints at the delicate path ahead." Sources said that renting Melreese as a stadium site "may rest with voters, with a referendum possible either in August or November." Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said that he "suspected a referendum would be called before turning over the public land to the Beckham venture." The plan would be to "lease a portion of Melreese to the Beckham group, with some areas of the existing park offerings remaining." Should Miami "move to negotiate with the Beckham group over Melreese, the soccer venture could find some steep competition eager to make some money on the public land." A Melreese stadium fight also could "pit Beckham against the open-space activists and others that helped scuttle a brief plan to put the MLS stadium in Miami’s Museum Park" after the initial bid for a PortMiami site failed in '14 (MIAMI HERALD, 3/7).
