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Beckham Miami MLS Stadium Plan Popular With Public; Still No County Land Agreement

Overtown MLS stadium

Progress is still halted on a new Miami MLS stadium development headed by a David Beckham investment group, but a poll indicates solid support for the privately financed project despite an impasse with Miami-Dade County over the sale terms for a three-acre parcel.

We reported on the impasse the other day: Miami-Dade County and the Beckham investment group came to a preliminary agreement for a three-acre site, part of a larger nine-acre stadium site, in the Overtown area for a new Miami MLS stadium, but county officials added a slew of conditions (free transit passes for workers, a goal of 65 percent of the jobs going to local residents, job training, and a promise not to reject any subcontractors or applicants “based solely on a prior incarceration”) that goes way above and beyond the terms set by the state for a no-bid land sale. (Indeed, the Beckham group is already paying $3 million more than the assessed value of the parcel.) So while the Beckham investment group mulls these additional conditions, the public waits for new on the Miami MLS stadium.

Which apparently OK for now, as a new poll from the Miami Herald indicates some pretty solid support for the project:

Almost 60 percent of Miami-Dade voters surveyed in the Miami Herald poll said they support the plan currently bogged down in talks between Beckham negotiators and county administrators. Beckham has offered to pay market rate for the three-acre truck depot used by the county’s Water and Sewer Department, and Miami-Dade would waive competitive bidding for the land in exchange for a package of hiring pledges and community benefits.

In the Bendixen & Amandi International poll of 600 registered Miami-Dade voters, 57 percent of respondents supported the soccer plan. Thirty-five percent opposed, and eight percent said they had no opinion. Bendixen conducted the survey May 1-4 in Spanish and English for the Miami Herald, el Nuevo Herald, WLRN and Univision 23.

We’re actually a little surprised to see as much as much opposition to the project indicated in this poll. Beckham’s investment group is privately financing the facility and paying market or above-market rates to governmental units for the land.

RELATED STORIES: Beckham, Miami-Dade Differ on Terms for New Miami MLS Stadium Land; Beckham Group Closes on Miami Stadium Land; Beckham looking for partners in MLS Miami; Beckham group now looks to Overtown MLS site; David Beckham dropping Little Havana stadium site: reports; Leiweke: Miami MLS stadium deal in trouble; Miami MLS stadium plan developing; Tim Leiweke joins Beckham MLS effort: Report

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