Breaking, breaking: Everyone is abuzz with the news in the last hour or so that soccer star David Beckham and Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez had apparently gotten 
back together and found a new home in Overtown for the future Major League Soccer Miami team’s stadium.
Gimenez said that he signed a non-binding “letter of intent” with Miami Beckham United on Thursday night that “confirms the group’s intention to negotiate the purchasing of land owned by Miami-Dade County, located on NW 6th Street and NW 6th Avenue near downtown Miami. Miami Beckham United would pay fair market value for the property that is currently managed by the Miami-Dade County Water and Sewer Department.
“The purchase is part of Miami Beckham United’s effort to assemble land to eventually construct a privately-financed, privately-owned Major League Soccer stadium in the urban core of our world-class community.”
What he didn’t say was that the six properties adjacent to the county owned Water and Sewer building on that street are owned by Thomas and Chris Korge and Barry Goldmeier, the father of Gimenez’s fundraiser, Brian Goldmeier.
According to the Miami-Dade Property Appraiserr’s site, six parcels next to the county-owned building along the northeast side are owned by New Miami River View LLC, a company owned by the Korges and Goldmeier that was established in 2003. The properties seem to have been bought as a whole for $1.4 million in 2006. One can assume that Beckham is going to pay a lot more than that if he wants to include them in the stadium footprint.
One thing is certain, the private land will not be enough for the stadium and would not be under consideration if the public, county-owned land — now a truck depot for storage of Water and Sewer vehicles — were not part of the formula. And even if the privately-owned New River properties are not part of the stadium footprint, the value of that land is likely to increase and interest for restaurants and retail is going to be a natural.
The stadium would be privately-owned, so Miami Beckham United would not get out of paying property taxes annually like it’s been trying to do with the three previous stadium sites. The last site was a property next to Marlins Park that would be owned by the Miami Dade School Board and the team would get tax abatement in exchange for providing some benefits to the school system, like uniforms and instruments as well as a venue for some school events. But the deals for the purchase of privately-owned land in Little Havana never materialized and that site was abandoned.
The guy with the daycare might be hitting himself over the head right now. He could have retired with a few million bucks and spent the rest of his life traveling and beachside. Now he gets to keep running a daycare in the shadow of Marlins Park. Yay!
“Although it has been nearly two years since David Beckham and his partners announced that their Major 
League League franchise would be located in Miami, there have been well-documented challenges to securing a viable location for a stadium,” Gimenez wrote in a statement Friday. “The signing of this non-binding Letter of Intent may be the most significant step in our collective efforts to make Major League Soccer a reality in Miami-Dade County. It is also further confirmation that Miami Beckham United wants its franchise to be in our community.”
The team would also have to create a certain number of jobs, both during construction and for operation, the mayor was clear to say, throwing the school board a bone.
“The needs of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools System will also be given careful consideration,” he said.
The county commission must approve sale of the county land and Gimenez said that all 13 of them had been told of the latest MLS stadium development either by the mayor himself or one of his administrators.
“I am hopeful that the transaction can be finalized and presented to the Board of County Commissioners for approval in the near future,” is how the mayor ended his press release.
Certainly, Korge and Goldmeier are hopeful as well. The team has already acquired the site at 650 NW 8th Street, owned by Windsor Investments Holdings. The 4.5-acre vacant lot across the street — the exact same footprint as the block owned by the county and the mayor’s pals — that was to have 581 residential units known as River Central. Beckham United has said it wants to assemble nine acres in total.
This is good news. We do want an MLS team and Overtown seems like a good place to put it, to hopefully fuel the redevelopment on the river.
But Ladra would like to know who knew what when. A potential site dealing with “privately-owned properties in Overtown” has been whispered about as a potential stadium site for months. Is this the two blocks they were looking at all along?
What a happy coincidence that the mayor’s pals will be involved in this deal, huh?
Carlos Gimenez’s pals own land for/near new soccer stadium added by Ladra on
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