Miami businessman Jorge Mas announced plans for a state-of-the-art soccer village on Sunday.
Mas posted a video teaser, along with a photo rendering, on his Twitter page teasing to Miami Freedom Park.
According to the video, Miami Freedom Park will be a world-class soccer village and technology hub, featuring 110 acres of permanent green space and 23 acres of youth soccer fields, which will be open to the public.
The video goes on to say that the soccer village will not use any taxpayer dollars and will be completely privately funded.
The park is said to bring in $40 million worth of annual tax revenue, and the group will donate $20 million to the city to help activate the park.
The soccer village is said to create 11,000 jobs over the next three years.
In June, soccer star David Beckham, along with Mas, met with Miami city commissioners to include the construction of the stadium to a referendum in the November ballot.
Local
The duo was looking at Melreese Country Club, a golf course situated next to Miami International Airport, and has been in business since the 1940’s.
Beckham, along with his business partners, Jorge and Jose Mas and Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure announced in January that they would bring an MLS to South Florida, with their first season of play expected during the 2020 season.
Original stadium sites that were denied for various reasons included near Port Miami and the American Airlines Arena, as well as next to Marlins Park.
The ownership group reached a deal in 2016 for land in Overtown to build a 25,000-seat stadium, but the last piece of land was not sold to the group until last summer – while some businesses and community members have waged legal battles to stop further plans for building that stadium.
This isn’t the first time South Florida has seen an MLS team. In 1998, the Miami Fusion began play at Ft. Lauderdale’s Lockhart Stadium, due to a conflict that prevented them from playing inside the former Orange Bowl Stadium as planned, before folding after the 2001 season.
