Miami Arena in 2001.
Miami Herald Profile
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Miami on the verge of choosing: football or golf?
David Beckham and his local partners want to close the city’s only local golf course to build what they call Miami Freedom Park, where the stadium stands alongside a hotel, courses, park and mall larger than Brickell City Center. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez called a special meeting of the committee on February 23 to discuss the agreement.
David Beckham and the Maas brothers weren’t the first businessmen to appear before a South Florida government body in search of a stadium deal for a professional sports team. Over the past four decades, wealthy owners have fought and won deals to help build the yards, with the help of taxpayers.
Some of these deals have worked. Some, not so much.
Joe Ruby Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium)
The ultimately futile battle last year by several Miami park owners to keep the Formula 1 race from Hard Rock Stadium and perhaps their neighborhood felt to long-time residents like the re-run of the 1985 battle to prevent construction of the stadium.
Except in 1985, when Miami Dolphins owner Joe Robbie wanted to build a 73,000-seat stadium, and adjacent hotels, shops, and office space on land he rented from the county for $1 a year, Jesse Jackson appeared for the population cause.
At the time, the area was “Unincorporated North Dade,” and the Dolphins were the only professional sports team in South Florida, held annually in the playoffs in the already dilapidated Orange Bowl, owned by the city of Miami.
The lawsuits failed to stop Robbie. Jackson, between two rounds of running for the Democratic presidential nomination, lent his voice to the homeowners’ argument against land repartition. Before a Miami-Dade County commission vote on September 26, 1985, he told the commissioners that restrictions on commercial development “were part of the great promise and offering to these people” when they bought into the area.
In front of a large crowd, the committee voted 7-1 in favor of the redistricting. Barbara Curry, the only black commissioner, saw her vocational school go on strike after she voted “yes.”
With some public assistance, Robbie paid for the construction of the stadium, which opened on August 16, 1987. But posthumous estate taxes in 1990 forced his children to sell the stadium and Dolphins to minority owner H. to current owner Stephen Ross.
In 2014, as Ross and the NFL pressed for public help to fund renovations, Miami-Dade County signed an agreement that, after amendments in 2018, would pay up to $5.75 million annually in hotel taxes for major events, such as the 2020 force. The revised deal, which drew the Dolphins training facility away from Broward County, is a 30-year agreement. Payments begin in 2025.
Miami Square
Funded mostly by a shadowy city agency Miami, the $50 million Miami Arena opened in 1988 to host the new NBA’s Miami Heat, and possibly a later NHL team, and to revive the shattered Overtown in the late 1960s when planners ran Interstate 95. across the region.
Not big enough. The arena that then-sports columnist Linda Robertson dubbed the 14703 Big Pink Dial Box for hockey, 15200 for basketball, was small even by 1974 standards, containing 18 fancy boxes, too few by 1995 standards.
By their first opener encounter at the Florida Panthers in 1993, the Heat complained that she needed a promotion. He left the Panthers in 1998 after five seasons. The Heat moved in the middle of the 1999-2000 season. The University of Miami men’s basketball team ran until 2003.
The Miami Arena hosted the 1990 NBA All-Star Weekend, the 1994 NCAA Championship games, the Heat’s first three games against the Knicks, the Panthers’ season of the Rat that ended with the awarding of the Stanley Cup (to the Colorado Avalanche, darn it), as well as arena football.
But the Miami Arena, like its Orlando cousin, was built prematurely by about six years. Most of the NBA/NHL arenas that opened in 1994-1996 are still in use, and are designed for the age of luxury Box-Arena amenities. The Miami Arena, a lousy place to do anything but watch the game and make noise, opened as an anachronism.
The city sold the Miami Arena to a private developer, Glen Straub, in 2004. Straub blew up a large box of pink Hatox in 2008.
National Car Rental Center (now called FLA Live Arena)
The Panthers knew that Miami Arena could not be their home forever. They earned ticket revenue from a very small arena ad, shingle and scoreboard, and only 45% of the franchises. All the money from parking lots and even fancy box tickets flowed into the City of Miami and Miami Heat counties.
Panthers founder H. Wayne Huizenga’s first plan, Blockbuster Park mostly in Miramar, would have included an arena for the Panthers, a stadium for the Marlins and an amusement park. Political approval was granted when Huizenga sold Blockbuster Video to Viacom in December 1994. But Viacom did not want any part of Blockbuster Park.
The Marlins still had a home. Panthers did not. And in the aftermath of the 1994 baseball strike and the 1994-95 NHL shutdown, no one felt warmth toward the athletes or the owners. Voters in Broward, Huizinga’s influence base, love the idea of using tourist taxes to fund the square, and officials had to listen. On July 18, 1995, Huizenga said the Panthers would never play at the Broward County Circuit. It was up to Dade or Palm Beach or the Panthers might move to Nashville.
Next, the Panthers conjure up a new arena with a magical season, the Year of the Rat.
Scott Mellanby of the Panthers killed a rat as he walked through the locker room at the Miami Arena before the 1995-1996 opener, then scored twice. Goalkeeper John Vanbisbroek dubbed it “the rat trick”. Fans started celebrating the goals by throwing plastic mice. The Panthers’ new aggressive style gave support to Vanbiesbrouck’s goal of playing an All-Star. With the Panthers reaching the Stanley Cup Final, supporting ring funding shifted from political suicide to political expediency.
Broward County commissioners approved hotel taxes to pay for the building. The groundbreaking of the new and still Sunrise Panthers home was the afternoon of the 1996-1997 home opening.
American Airlines Arena (now called FTX Arena)
The Miami Heat lease reflected its position as a major tenant at the Miami Arena, but even by 1993, the NBA franchise wanted to take on a better building in downtown Miami. By 1996, the Miami Arena looked like a changing machine next to the new US Open Basketball Mint or under construction in Chicago, Boston, Vancouver, Philadelphia and Washington.
After the Heat cast their eyes on Broward County, the Heat got the Dade County commissioners, by 8-4 votes, to agree to pay 70% of the $165 million waterfront yard. Like Broward County’s deal with the Panthers for their new home, hotel taxes were paying a large portion of the overhead costs.
The convention was torn apart by candidates in the fall county mayoral race, especially Alex Pinellas, who won the mayoral seat. Pinellas then struck a new deal with the Heat before a referendum that, had he passed, would have judged plans for the waterfront stadium. The team, owned by billionaire cruise line Mickey Arison, has agreed in its negotiations with Pinellas to build the arena. The county will own the arena and pay the team $235 million over 30 years to cover operating costs.
About 59% of voters voted against the referendum as The Heat spent millions on pre-vote ads that promised nearby green spaces coexisting with the plaza—even though today’s Dan Paul Plaza is grass and asphalt and is used largely as a platform and parking area for the plaza.
The arena opened with Gloria Estefan’s concert on New Year’s Eve, 1999. The Heat played their first game there three days later.
Marlins Park (now called Depot Park Loan)
During the original Joe Robbie Court years, the Marlins won the 1997 and 2003 World Championships, followed by a dismantling of the buzz list in 1998 and 2006. However, the property blamed them for having low-power Marlins on the court — someone else owned, uncomfortable on summer nights. Steamy, unbearable during daily games and prone to the threats of daily precipitation.
Without any fanfare driving South Florida politicians to build a stadium, Marlins owner Jeffrey Luria and Marlins president David Samson have visited other cities to create a sensation. They also refused to open the team’s books publicly while claiming a publicly funded facility.
That didn’t matter in 2009 when the Marlins were able to convert a double county-city game into a $634 million stadium plan. Miami-Dade took most of the check, $359 million. Miami committed $119 million to building parking lots, a stadium, and other improvements.
Then the Deadspin website revealed that the Marlins got their money’s worth in 2008 and 2009 from revenue sharing while spending a pittance on players. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez’s support for the stadium deal joined the list of reasons he brought it back in 2011 with an 88% vote.
The Marlins’ ownership was spent on free agents before the stadium opened in 2012, then another listing was dismantled. In 2021, the Marlins’ average attendance at home games ranked last in the league.
Since 1989, David J. Neal’s Miami Herald has expanded to include writing about Panthers (NHL and FIU), Dolphins, old school cartoons, food safety, fraud, naughty lawyers, bad doctors, and all kinds of breaking news. He drinks a whole colada. It doesn’t run on the day of the Indianapolis 500 race.
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