Plans for a Major League Soccer team and stadium are rolling along, like a black and white ball on an open field, so 
smoothly and quickly that the principal cheerleaders — Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and his new BFF, soccer star David Beckham, and Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber — will be stumping for support at a special press conference for VIPs, friends and select media that they’ve tentatively scheduled for Wednesday.
So let me get this straight… They are rallying support for their pitch even before anybody knows what the pitch is?
Perhaps they took a cue from last year’s down-in-flames “unprecedented deal” between Gimenez and Miami Dolphins’ owner Stephen Ross to get taxpayers to fund the upgrades to the billionaire’s privately owned SunLife Stadium and are getting the public opinion campaign started early.
Perhaps not. There is speculation that the small details of a proposed deal — the bulk of which has already been pretty much established, sources say — will be hammered out over the weekend in time for next week’s announcement. It is expected to include lease of county land for something like $1 a year, tax abatement or incentives from Tallahassee and, perhaps what insults most people, the rights to develop on waterfront property at the Port of Miami.
Really? This is the best location for a soccer stadium, when most of the fans live along the western corridor from Doral to the 
Hammocks in West Kendall? They want to use the place where we are building a $1 billion tunnel to alleviate traffic in and out of what our leaders call “the economic engine” of our community? They want to use a place right next to the American Airlines Arena, where traffic is already so bad on Heat game nights that it takes half an hour or more to get off Biscayne Boulevard?
Really?
I have a friend who lives downtown and if there is a Heat game at the same time as a perfomance at the Adrienne Arsht Center at the same time as some press event at the Freedom Tower, she walks wherever she has to go. Soon we’ll have the Perez Miami Art Museum and Museum of Science patrons to and froing in that same area.
Beckham likes the spot because stadiums in other cities have been successful when they are in or close to the urban core and accessible by mass transit. But Miami has little mass transit and Ladra can’t see Pablito from Barranquilla or Eladio from Venezuela dumping their sedans to hoof it. There is no Metrorail station in Doral.
And I’ll just bet that, at the end of the day, any proposal includes valet parking! It’s disingenuous.
Also, while the views will be stunning, folks will be going there to see soccer, not the skyline. A 25,000 seat stadium can pretty much be accommodated elsewhere. It’s just a little bit bigger than the highschool football stadium at Tropical Park.
Both Commissioners Jose “Pepe” Diaz and Xavier “Mayor Sir” Suarez have expressed concerns with the PortMiami site and, particularly, security issues. Commissioner Bruno Barreiro, whose district it is in, loves the idea.
To be sure, this is not the Marlins stadium deal nor the doom Dolphins stadium scam.
Proponents say that there is no tourist tax proposed for this. That Beckham (net worth: $300 million) and his investors — which include American Idol creator Simon Fuller (net worth: $560 million is the lowest number cited) will pay for all the development and construction costs. That there will be a nice share on profits or ticket sales or something.
Read related content: Sweetheart soccer stadium deal already has opposition
But what if there are not enough ticket sales to cover their costs? Parrot Jungle is a not-so-distant example of where the city of Miami leased land to a facility and then got stuck holding the bag. What are they going to do after non payment? Evict the parrots and look for another tenant? The recent news about the Miami Heat’s first “revenue sharing” payment on the AAA after 15 years of occupancy also gave us a window into how these type of agreements can work out — or not. And have you been to a Marlins game lately. Lonely, ain’t it?
We have been burnt too many times on these public land deals and it is difficult for Ladra to believe that it can’t be done a better way.
And there is tax money involved because the Beckham group intends to go after the same $3 million in state tax rebates that other teams get from Tallahassee and that was part of the Dolphins stadium’s doomed formula last year. Those are tax dollars.
Have there been any studies about the best use of the property at the Port? Any studies about the impact such a stadium there might have on traffic or on our water and sewer resources downtown?
Doesn’t it seem to anyone else that this plan is being jammed down our throats at breakneck speed? What’s the emergency? Why can’t we take our time? There has been some talk about how MLS won’t approve a franchise for Mr. Golden Boy Beckham if they don’t like the deal or the location. Does anybody really buy that “if you build it, they will come” bullshit?
Um, hello McFly? They will come whether we help build it or not. We just happen to have the one thing that no other city in the U.S. has — the biggest market for futbol in the country. Doesn’t anybody else see that? The message from the county and our leaders to these millionaires who want to come here already, and for good reason, should be: “You build it. We might come.” Why do we have to give MLS any incentives? Why wouldn’t they want to be in Miami — the “gateway to the Americas” — anyway? Maybe we don’t have to give them anything. Maybe they can give us something.
One friend and astute political observer told me that Beckham and Fuller ought to act like real estate developer Jorge Perez or Genting — the gambling giant that wants to build a casino on the old Miami Herald property they purchased — and buy privately-owned land rather than look for a handout from the county. Talk about a boost for the economy!
We already know that they are willing to play at the Marlins Stadium for five years or until construction on their own digs is done. Let’s take our time and do it right — find the perfect place, the right deal that doesn’t give everything away to the millionaires and leave the taxpayers with one less 
asset to use for revenue. How can our county leaders seriously consider giving anything away to millionaire sports team owners while they continue to take hard-earned dollars from their employees to balance the budget?
Dicen las malas lenguas that this press conference — the announcement of which may have come as a surprise to some of the mayoral staff working on it, which includes point man Deputy Mayor Chip Iglesias — is really meant to put the pressure on the county to publicly lay out the plans they’ve been discussing privately. I mean, Beckham’s schedule is planned to the second with a Jimmy Fallon appearance and Superbowl tickets. They would have had to be planning the Wednesday press conference for days already, even before they slipped it to the Miami Herald. Ladra thinks Beckham already got approval for the team and he was going to announce that. Announcing a deal would be bonus.
I can’t wait to hear what they’ve come up with and Ladra is particularly interested in what the mayor has to say this time.
Because I still recall the threats from Gimenez and his cheerleaders last year about the Dolphins stadium and how, if we didn’t pay for the roof and renovations, we would lose Major League Soccer.
That, apparently, wasn’t exactly true. So let’s take what he says this week with a grain of salt.
Beckham soccer stadium deal: Unknown and already it smells added by Ladra on
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