Go West, Beckham — Strike 2 for waterfront soccer stadium

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David Beckham isn’t getting what he wants. No downtown waterfront stadium for you, Mr. Cutie Pie.

Now some people are worried Beckham is going to take his ball and go home. Or, to another city anyway. His spokesman has said they are regrouping, but people close to the negotiations say they’re afraid that right now, there is a bad taste in their mouths.

The first drawings for a stadium complex at the Port of Miami were nixed by Miami-Dade Commissioners, who voted overwhelmingly against it, telling the retired soccer star with a discounted Major League Soccer franchise to move on. Then Plan B, filling in an underused boat slip and connect Museum Park to the AmericanAirlines Arena, was scrapped by city of Miami officials. Move on a little more, Mr. Beckham.

But what they are really saying is Go West, young man.

“It just isn’t an appropriate use for the site,” Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado said, adding that he spoke to the city attorney, who told him that millions of dollars in bond monies and grant monies used for the development of Museum Park would likely have to be returned. “And not in installments,” Regalado told Ladra. “All at once. We can’t do that.”

He also said that he doubted the measure, which is required to go to a public referendum, would pass. “There just isn’t a lot of support among the residents who live in and near the downtown,” Regalado told me.

It may also be possible that it had something to do with the insulting, slap-in-the-face offer of $500,000 in annual rent, when the city was thinking more about $12 million — and Ladra was thinking $6 to $8 million might suffice. “Far apart,” one city official was quoted as saying the two sides were. Two different worlds, is what I would have called it. There are houses in Pinecrest that rent for that. So the New York consultant came back days later with an offer of $2 million. Gee, that’s quite an immediate hike from $500K to $2 mil.

Dude, Regalado is old school Cuban. You cannot dis him by, first, not including him in your original courtship with Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez — yes, the bromance should have been a three-way — and, then, by tossing low balls.

Ladra still thinks that someone ought to lock Beckham and Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross up in a room for a couple of days and not let them go ’til they iron out a plan for dual SunLife Stadium, which Ross wants to fix on our backs. Something there would draw soccer fans from both Miami-Dade and Broward.

But I’ve been told by several sources there are three other more likely, possible scenarios:

• By Marlins Park, which Beckham doesn’t like because he and/or his partners say it’s “tainted” by that bad deal. Well, why not be a true community savior and turn that around. Putting soccer next to baseball in Little Havana might actually work.
•  Tropical Park has come up several times recently. Home to a top-notch equestrian center, the rest of the park has fallen into terrible — almost dangerous — disrepair. A deal in which they improve the property and pay us rent and bring us professional soccer would be a true win, win. It’s next to the expressway. There is already ample parking — which Ladra hears is a phobia of Beckham’s. It would be great for UM, which could play closer to home — except our good community friend Stephen Ross won’t let them out of their 15-year contract.
• The Florida International University Tamiami campus. A stadium there would also benefit a public university. What a concept! Why isn’t that being pushed more by our commissioners or pursued more by Beckham et al, if this is really about soccer and not about real estate? Oh, wait, because the stadium there would be on the land of a state university and the county can’t play Let’s Make a Deal with it.

The Mayor’s office issued a statement that they would be happy to look at and consider other sites, if the Beckham people asked them to. Key word: if.

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