The David Beckham soccer era in Fort Lauderdale will begin soon, starting with the demolition of two sports stadiums that hosted decades of community memories.
The soccer legend won the unanimous go-ahead Tuesday night to tear down Lockhart Stadium and the adjacent Fort Lauderdale Stadium in the next six months.
The two stadiums have seen baseball home runs, soccer goals and football touchdowns dating back to the 1950s. Two professional soccer teams called Lockhart home, and two professional baseball teams honed their skills at the Fort Lauderdale Stadium during Spring Training. Local high schools fueled football rivalries at Lockhart for years.
In recent year, the stadiums fell into disrepair, overgrown and abandoned.
Next up: Inter Miami CF, a new Major League Soccer team owned by Beckham and his business partners.
Beckham plans a “soccer-centric community destination” at the 64-acre Lockhart site. After the stadium is torn down, a new, canopied, 18,000-seat replacement will go up. And Inter Miami will play its first two seasons there. In addition, the property will serve as Inter Miami’s training hub for the next 50 years, under the tentative agreement with the city.
Fort Lauderdale city commissioners inked an interim agreement Tuesday night with Beckham, so his group can get started remaking the public property next to Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE), north of Commercial Boulevard and west of Interstate 95. The agreement allows Beckham’s group to test soil, assess environmental damage, tear down the stadiums, salvage Lockhart bleachers if possible, and begin planning and designing the proposed new soccer complex.
Beckham and his business partners are on a relatively short time line to get a new stadium constructed at Lockhart by next February.
Under Beckham’s proposal, the city will contribute no money toward the new stadium, but would allow use of the city land for 50 years.
Mayor Dean Trantalis raised a concern with Lockhart’s demolition, worrying that if Beckham should “walk away from the deal,” the city couldn’t move to the second-ranked rival bidder for the city acreage. That bidder, FXE Futbol, proposed renovating Lockhart Stadium to host a Division 2 soccer team.
Beckham’s lawyer-lobbyist Stephanie Toothaker said the stadiums likely couldn’t be rehabilitated, and demolition will be costly, because they contain asbestos.
“Even if all we did was demolish, that’s actually a great benefit to the city of Fort Lauderdale,” Toothaker said.
Others on the commission said they didn’t mind having the stadium torn down and the property cleared, or had faith in the deal.
“I’m optimistic about this deal going forward,” Commissioner Robert McKinzie said. “We know we cannot use the stadium in its current condition.”
City Manager Chris Lagerbloom said he likes to protect the city from risk also. But he didn’t advise delaying the Beckham stadium based on worst-case scenario, as the mayor proposed.
“We’re both going to travel with a little bit of risk if this project is going to open in 2020,” he said.
Toothaker, said she’d return with some assurance for the city. Trantalis said he’d like a performance bond to be posted, so the city could recoup money if the deal breaks down after the stadium is removed.
“I feel the city is left exposed. If we find ourselves with a stadium that has been scrapped and the other side walks away, the city is left holding the bag — in this case, an empty bag,” Trantalis said.
Inter Miami eventually is expected to play in a new stadium in Miami, at the city’s Melreese Country Club golf course. But facing delays there, Beckham recently announced the team would play its first two seasons at Lockhart.
“The whole purpose of this agreement is to keep us on track with timing,” Toothaker said, acknowledging there are still many issues to hammer out.
When Inter Miami moves to Miami-Dade County, the Lockhart site will remain the team’s training hub, where soccer talent is developed. Beckham will field a USL League One farm team at Lockhart, as well as a youth soccer academy. Beckham also would build a parking garage, and 30,000-square foot training center with gym, classrooms, dining facilities, medical and rehab space for his professional and farm teams.
For the public, four regulation size soccer fields that can be used for other sports will be built, as well as a dog park, a running trail, field maintenance building, playground and public park space. There would be space for a community center, but Beckham proposes the city pay for it.
Miami Beckham United’s partners are David and Victoria Beckham, brothers Jorge and Jose Mas of MasTec, a $7 billion engineering and construction company; Marcelo Claure and Masayoshi Son of SoftBank Group, and Simon Fuller, a TV producer and talent manager.
A final deal still must be approved by the City Commission.
The deal will bring a new public park — and possibly a community center — to the city’s northern end. A newly approved parks bond issue could provide money for the city to develop the park portion of the acreage, though commissioners haven’t agreed on details.
City Commissioner Heather Moraitis, whose district includes the Lockhart site, said she’s holding community meetings to find out what people want to see on the portions of the acreage that will be public parks or sports fields. A meeting Monday night was well attended, she said.
“Everyone’s super excited about it,” she said.
Fort Lauderdale and Stranahan high school officials said they hope to be included in the plans. Their football teams since 2012 have had to play elsewhere, usually outside city limits.
Civic activists beseeched the city in March not to forge an agreement with Beckham unless it allows use of the new stadium for local high school football games. Toothaker had said the group couldn’t commit to specific dates until the Major League Soccer schedule is issued. But she agreed Tuesday to add the football games as “aspirational” goals, and promised to work with school district officials.