Miami Mayor Francis Suarez made a rare appearance at the city commission meeting last week to push for the return of $20 million to developers of Miami Freedom Park — the boondoggle real estate complex with a soccer stadium in the mix that is being built on the grounds of the old Melreese golf course — even though he tried to make it look like that was always the plan.
Suarez said the $20 million, which the public thought were going to the improvement and acquisition of other parks in the city, were always supposed to go to the maintenance of the 58-acre park, which on the MFP website is called Jorge Mas Canosa Park. He said the “language was very clear” in the 2018 ballot question passed by 60% of the voters in 2018 “that $20 million was going to go to a 58-acre park,” he paused for dramatic effect, “or other green space.”
Key words: Other green space.
But Suarez said that those three little words were only included because it was a constitutional question, which meant that it would dictate what the city could and could not do based on what people voted for. “And you want some legal room in case you want to deviate from what the voters themselves wanted,” the mayor explained.
Did he mean legal wiggle room? So this was intentional? Someone knew all along that the $20 million — sold as a public benefit to sweeten the deal for residents — would never go to “other green space?”
Read related: Miami Freedom Park developers want their $20 million parks donation back
The idea, when the 99-year lease agreement was approved in 2022, was spurred by the “no net loss” policy that meant the loss of green space at Melreese would have to be replaced elsewhere, Suarez said. Because of that policy, the city carved out $7.5 million from the $20 mil to give $2.5 mil to commission districts 2, 3 and 5 for the acquisition and development of new parks, he said. District 4 was punished because Commissioner Manolo Reyes always voted against Miami Freedom Park. District 1 was left out because that’s where Miami Freedom Park is.
“Four months later, the property was rezoned, the no net loss issue was resolved,” Suarez said. “That money should be restored based on what the voters want, or the will of the voters.
“This is a city park that the residents voted in favor of allocating $20 millions to,” he said, forgetting the words “other green space,” this time, and reminding everyone that $20 million today are not the same as 2018 dollars.
“It’s like giving The Underline a haircut.”
To sell it (this time) to commissioners, Suarez sweetened the soured deal with an amendment that would allocate $2.5 million to districts 2, 3 and 5 and basically instructed the city manager to find the funds by April. “So that no resident in the city can say that they, in any way, feel disenfranchised.” It was expanded to $10 million — with another $2.5 mil for District 4 — after Commissioner Joe Carollo volunteered to help the manager find the funds.
“I believe I can find the funds for the three districts, because one was getting more, and find sufficient funds to give commissioner Reyes his $2.5 million also for his district,” said Carollo, who should be investigated for how he spent the millions in funds budgeted by the Bayfront Park Management Trust when he was chair for eight years.
“I will work with the manager and I will show him fairly quickly where the money can be found.”
Shudder.
Carollo blasted the media for “so much disinformation out there” and said the city would have had to spend the money to maintain the 58-acre park anyway.
“At no time have we been speaking about the Mas brothers not going to pay us the $20 million, that they are going to somehow do a switch and bait and use the dollars for their park,” Carollo said, referring to Jorge and Jose Mas, who own the Inter Miami team with David Beckham and are developing the property. Well, that’s kind of what happened.
The bottom line is that the commission voted 4-1 to return the full $20 million into a fund to maintain the park at the soccer stadium complex — which will also have offices, restaurants, stores and a 700-room hotel. Only Commissioner Damian Pardo voted against it, but he told Political Cortadito after the meeting that the did so because he did not have enough time to digest what was being proposed.
Reyes voted in favor because he said the resolution was “respecting the will of the people.” But he voted against another resolution that supported the establishment of a Community Development District, which is an instrument to collect maintenance fees. Basically, the developers are going to tax themselves — as the only “property owners” — to create an avenue for $500,000 to be earmarked for maintenance of the park for the next 100 years.
Read related: Miami Freedom Park scores yes vote for massive stadium real estate complex
CDDs are typically formed where there are residential owners who can leverage the future tax dollars to borrow on a tax-exempt basis. But because this is a wholly commercial development, with no resident board (at least for now), the developers of Miami Freedom Park won’t be able to do that, Suarez explained. “In this case there is no allowance for housing, because it’s next to the airport, so they can’t borrow on a tax-free basis.”
But, apparently, they can still borrow funds, because the mayor said there was another safety net.
“If they defaulted if they did borrow funds, CDDs do not impact the city in terms of, its not a lien against the city property,” Suarez said. “It would be a lien against the lease hold interest.” He said the tenants requested that the city support their application to become a CDD, which is through the county, because “they want to contribute to the operation and maintenance of the park.”
Okay. But why do they need a CDD to do that? Are they really just trying to borrow money with the lease as collateral?
Suarez stressed all the positives, calling it the best “stadium deal in the world.” He reminded the commission about the $5 million the developers are giving to the Baywalk along Biscayne Bay and the Miami River. Though Ladra thinks they would take that back if there was waterfront at the development site.
He said the $20 million are to shore up the fund because the $500,000 produced by the CDD won’t be enough.
“They want to make sure the the park, which is adjacent to their property, is kept up and maintained,” Suarez said. They didn’t want to leave it up to the city, he said, which “could have years when it maintains it well and years when it maintains it poorly.”
“They want to be able to control that outcome… have the park up to the billion dollar standard that is going up next door.”
“So, this is found money,” Suarez said. “This is money they didn’t have to pay so it’s just going to make the deal better than what it was.”
But what is $20 million in a $1 billion project? Is someone going to argue that the developers — who obviously need better public relations representation — don’t have another $20 million somewhere that they could have used for that? They had to take what amounts to $7.5 million from the city’s taxpayers — because the city manager is going to find that somewhere to fill the hole made by this resolution — to make themselves feel better?
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Miami Freedom Park gets its full $20 million back for 58-acre public park added by Ladra on
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