Miami Freedom Park Amendment Would Cut Promised Soccer Fields

A City Commission vote on Thursday would dramatically scale back the number of community soccer fields at Miami Freedom Park, codifying a smaller minimum than what voters were promised when the project won approval in 2018.

As Miami city commissioners prepare to vote Thursday on proposed amendments to the Miami Freedom Park development agreement, a central public benefit of the voter-approved project — the number of community soccer fields — would be formally scaled back.

The amendments would define “sports fields” at the privately-funded, $1.3 billion project as no fewer than six, a notable reduction from the 11 fields promised to voters during the 2018 referendum campaign and described in early project materials, and still referenced today in archived press releases on the project’s own website.

Miami Freedom Park, the future home of Major League Soccer’s Inter Miami FC, is slated to rise on the former Melreese Golf Course — 131 acres of publicly owned land near Miami International Airport — that for decades served as a dumping ground for incinerator ash and other toxic materials. 

The development will include a 73-acre mixed-use complex anchored by a 25,000-seat soccer stadium, a new city administration building, and a 58-acre public park that includes both passive and recreational spaces. 

The stadium is scheduled to host its inaugural match on April 4. The surrounding public park and playing fields are not expected to open until later this year.

Voters approved the plan in November 2018 by a nearly 20-point margin, authorizing the city to negotiate a lease without seeking competing development proposals. At the time, project backers emphasized expansive public benefits, including a large public park and 11 soccer fields available to the community.

Under the ordinance now before commissioners, sponsored by former City Manager Arthur Noriega, the number of required soccer fields for community use would be set at six. The amendment also authorizes flexible configurations, allowing the fields to be subdivided into smaller playing surfaces. 

Neither the original agreement nor the proposed amendment requires the fields to be regulation size, leaving open the possibility that the six-field commitment could be satisfied with smaller, multi-use or youth-scaled fields rather than full-size soccer pitches.

Under terms of the agreement, guaranteed free access to the fields will be limited to children ages 16 and under, rather than older children and adult users.  Such access is also limited to City of Miami residents only.

The proposed reduction in required soccer fields comes alongside other park-related changes that city staff describe as technical updates aligning the public benefits agreement with previously amended lease documents. 

These include granting the city manager flexibility to approve alternative ground cover in place of specified turf grass, revising lighting standards to remove a fixed minimum number of light poles per acre, and adding dusk-to-dawn LED lighting along the park’s wellness loop.

But the proposed changes would also reduce the minimum required topsoil depth across the playing fields, parkland and other landscaped areas from two feet to one — a significant reduction given the soil’s function as a protective barrier against exposure to the long-buried toxic materials at the site.

An earlier change to the city’s lease with Miami Freedom Park’s developers drew criticism after a required $10 million contribution — once described as supporting new parks citywide — was redirected entirely back to the project itself. 

Opponents of the shift, including former Miami District 2 Commissioner Ken Russell, said the change weakened a core public-benefit commitment that helped justify leasing city land to a private developer.

Read More: ‘Bait and switch’: City votes to send Inter Miami’s $10m for public parks back to their own project

The project also came under additional scrutiny last November after a Spotlight investigation found that city officials altered — without public notice — the language of a city law governing the replacement of city-owned parkland sold or leased to private developers. 

The change allows the city to count certain existing public parcels — including those within the Miami Freedom Park site — toward its “no net loss” requirement, rather than acquiring new parkland to offset what is lost to development.