They still have no idea where they’ll put it, how much it will cost, or how it’ll be paid for, but that’s not going to stop David Beckham’s as-yet-unnamed MLS expansion franchise from releasing renderings of what their new stadium might look like:
Yeah, it looks like a drawing of a soccer stadium, all right, though the weirdly undulating roof is a … modern touch, I suppose? Or at least as modern as you can reasonably get when you’re not allowed to invent a stadium-spanning monorail.
There’s all kinds of other breathless prose in the Miami Herald article about all this — “a new public plaza reminiscent of Rome’s Spanish Steps”! “the curvaceous canopy would protect fans from the rain and sun”! — but mostly this is just Beckham’s group throwing down the gauntlet for a bayfront stadium site, and seeing if … it does whatever gauntlets are supposed to do. If the port site, which is opposed by cruise ship companies that dock near there, is rejected, “we’ll play somewhere else,” Beckham real-estate advisor John Alschuler told the Herald.
As for paying for the project, Alschuler dropped a couple more hints, indicating that the team will be seeking one of those $2 million a year sales-tax break deals that the state of Florida likes to hand out (though this may be marginally less rubber-stampy in the future) and that “public improvements,” including that Roman-reminiscent plaza, would need to be partly funded by local government. But in the meantime: pretty pictures!
I personally find the full house to be more astounding than any of the design components.
It’s not a design if there isn’t high-speed rail running through it.
Kei: that’s the opener.
Subsequent matches will look more like old Miami Fusion attendance.
Yeah, what’s the idea with that design of a futuristic stadium with the monorail running through it? Is the architect a fan of the movie “Brewster’s Millions?” Old enough to have watched Phillies games at Baker Bowl with the hump in the outfield?
And as far as soccer in Miami goes, the only way large crowds will attend games involving a second-tier league like MLS is if Beckham’s wife gets together with her old cohorts and puts on a postmatch concert (or, failing that, a concert with someone who can actually sing).
In a related matter there is a story in the Tampa Tribune this morning indicating that the “Rowdies” have issued a letter to the city of St. Pete proclaiming their disdain for Al Lang stadium..
http://tbo.com/pinellas-county/rowdies-deride-dilapidated-al-lang-stadium-20140324/