Miami-Dade County (Florida) today approved the sale of a plot of land to the investor group headed by former England soccer player David Beckham to build the future stadium of the city team for the Professional Football League (MLS) .
With nine votes in favor and four against, county commissioners agreed to sell for about $ 9 million from a 2.8-acre (11,340-square-meter) lot in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood, picked up the canal Location 10.
The Beckham group owns a six-acre site adjacent to the one it will buy now to complete the surface needed to build a 25,000-seat stadium.
With the approval of the county authorities, it is closer to fulfilling Beckham’s dream of creating an MLS football team in Miami.
“We should be playing football by the year 2020,” Beckham partner Tim Leiweke said after the vote on the future of the land, currently occupied by a county-owned truck depot.
Building the stadium will involve a disbursement of 300 million dollars, with the help of private funds, just as in the past it was announced by the Miami Beckham United group, which also includes the creator of the American Idol Simon Fuller program.
The choice of this area in Overtown to erect the club’s stadium was the fourth attempt of the group of the exjugador of Real Madrid.
Beckham failed to pull off the first two places he proposed for the stadium in the Port of Miami and next to the American Airlines Coliseum, facing opposition from several sectors affected, such as cruise ships, as well as neighborhood associations and environmentalists.
The group shuffled a third place in downtown Miami, adjacent to the Marlins baseball stadium, a site that required the investor group to acquire a number of occupied homes near the area planned for the site, a side that in the long run Complicated the operation.
“I firmly believe that the sale of this property as well as the subsequent construction of the football stadium will leave a lasting positive impact on the community,” said Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Giménez.
The Beckham group will now have to get approval from the county zoning department for the construction of the stadium.
