Dolphins and Miami-Dade close to deal for stadium renovation
- Thread starter Nublar7
- Start date
Best scenario I have heard.
It's a shame you've allowed yourself into being duped into thinking that these are the only choices. They aren't.
Which I guess in your mind was an unknown occurrence before 1987, when the Dolphins had a stellar home winning percentage.
---------- Post added at 11:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:35 AM ----------
Worse than that. It's like being happy with years of 8-8 seasons. Losing 1-2 points per game means we have to be better than other mediocre teams just to stay mediocre.
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I live in Boynton, so this area of SoFla is my turf. The area of West Delray you're talking about has already been partially developed into a high end strip mall/shopping complex (they opened back in Jan or Feb, I think), complete with a movie theater, a sushi restaurant, a large yuppie bar (lots of different beers on tap) and some other restaurants/shops.
And it's a dead zone. I was just up there a week or two ago to drink at the yuppie bar -- which was designed for a person like me, right down to the music -- and it was depressingly dead. And no wonder. That whole area of Palm Beach County is a dead zone. Nobody wants to go out there. Google Maps hasn't gone up there and done new pictures of the road in so long the street view still shows the cow field that it used to be.
Palm Beach County is the epitome of that old piece of received wisdom about Florida: everybody who's born here moves somewhere else to make good, so just about everyone you see is from somewhere else. Relatively young, energetic people like myself are just not that common. You can see it in the restaurants, if nothing else. PBC is full of chains. If you want something adventurous you really have to look for it, and even the places that try, like DaDa -- in Delray -- are mediocre. The talent simply isn't here.
As a result, these kinds of people congregate in only the best spots, by which I mean downtown Delray and downtown Palm Beach proper. There isn't enough demand for that experience to support "overflow" to an area like West Delray. People like me aren't looking for "overflow". We're looking for the main experience, because that main experience isn't common around here. It was a dubious idea at best. I can only imagine the canny power point presentations the slick real estate agents must have sold those shop owners on, talking about the average age and income of this area... raw numbers pulled from census data that doesn't show that our average age is regulated downward by our relatively poor recent immigrant population -- mostly from Haiti -- who are not that interested in football (I do like their restaurants, though). While the average income is pushed up by rich older people who's main interests are laying on the beach, playing tennis and eating at four in the afternoon. It's one of those cases where the "average" describes a group of people that don't actually exist.
Your whole post, even the parts I snipped out, are sort of perplexing to me. A very different mindset. "Cow fields" and "room to roam" is exactly the kinds of places that a football stadium should be trying to avoid. You want energy. You want intensity. If you're not trying to move away from that, stay at JRS.
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roy_miami
2020 cant get here soon enough
When that video was created the seats were designed in a way to accommodate international soccer games, with Beckham looking to build his own soccer stadium in Miami now I wonder if that is still in the plans for us?
AFCMiamiEast
Active Roster
I've actually met some friends in the area up at that new "Delray Marketplace" where we sat out by the beer hall fire pit for a few hours chug a lugging. It's a very nice new shopping center and miles away in more than distance from the Dixie corridor of which you speak where the poor Haitians have moved and have nothing to do with the affluence of the area. If you've driven up and down Lyons you'll see new developments nearby of $500thou and up large family homes; ditto nearby northwest Boca. They are not seniors but rather people raising their family looking for more space and safety. And as you said, business and residential is starting to return to the edge of the Everglades.... and that's why that nice Promenade was built now that the housing crunch and mortgage availability has made it easier for families to move. And that trend will continue.
While I understand your counterpoint of vibrancy, Miami Gardens has none of that, and it's as easy if not easier to travel to regentrified Delray, West Palm and of course Boca as it is to get to South Beach from Joe Robbie.. so IMO that argument is a non-starter in neither case are you rolling out of a stadium and (in the case of JR safely) walking to a party zone. And my point is that the demographics of old Joe Robbie have shifted north making it more convenient for people out of the area (which in most instances is still the same regarding JR) to access a new stadium with plenty of land to acquire built to spec... and that the ability of a more accessible stadium to more affluent new ticketholders (since you brought that up) coupled with the novelty at least for a few years more than counterbalances the erosion of season ticketholders for good and other reasons which make me embarrassed when I do attend several times each season. And a stadium out of the way for the normal Northeast fan who conveniently can party in South Beach and then take public transportatin to the game mitigates for more partisan crowds - because of lack of accessibility and hopefully lack of available seats due to the new location. It's all interrelated.
Again, people who live in Boston do not expect to party in Foxboro 40 miles away; ditto those who live in the Bay area. They want to get in and out of Santa Clara at the bottom of the peninsula as fast as possible. Beyond that, a vibrant stadium, even presently being built out in the boonies will draw enterprising hospitality related businesses to cater to them. While I do understand how traditionalists feel about breaking what's a losing mold, I'm sure Bostonians felt the same way but found that they could adjust very easily. So consequently with all due respect, I think you're not seeing the forest for the trees - especially considering where Joe Robbie is and how other distant stadiums draw their fans. :idk:
Good question. My guess is that the plans are likely still to be able to accommodate international soccer games for a couple of reasons.
Right now Sun Life Stadium has an easy time filling up the 75,000 seats for international soccer games, the proposed renovated Sun Life will have 65,000. The proposed new Beckham stadium is something around 40,000 seats, so international games might still prefer to go to the bigger stadium knowing they will be able to sell out every seat.
The other reason is that Beckham is having a hard time getting approval for the stadium he wants. So it is possible it could be years before that is built and there might even be a chance the idea is scrapped altogether.
Beckham having a hard time getting help for his stadium, coupled with the Dolphins having a hard time getting help and the Marlins' stadium disaster is why a brand new state of the art stadium that likely would cost in the $1 billion range is not very realistic. If smaller stadiums and lower cost renovations are continued to be met with backlash, how is a $1 billion new stadium going to be OK? Who is going to pay for it? You think the same people who scoffed at around $100 million of public money(coming from tourists not locals) will be good with a $400-$500 million price tag for a new stadium? Probably not, so who is going to fund this brand new stadium that is being built? Are people saying it should be Ross himself paying $1 billion of his money to build a new stadium? If so, why is it OK to tell him what to do with his money but horrible when your money is talked about being used? If he is footing the entire bill(as he is with this $400 million renovation project), it isn't fair to tell him how to spend it when no one else wants to help. I am sure if he could get public help and support for a new stadium, it would happen, right now though it was never an option on the table. It is a fantasyland idea that a new stadium was even a realistic option.
Really the options were pretty clear for the Dolphins. Renovate Sun Life Stadium and have it be very close to a new state of the art stadium or continue to let it sit as is. A new stadium was never a realistic option. The worst thing that could happen is that the stadium could sit there like Qualcomm Stadium and continue to just get worse. So worse to the point that the Chargers are running out of options that Los Angeles is a realistic option for them. Dolphins are not at that point, but since a new stadium is not a realistic option for Miami, the renovations are the best bet. Even if you didn't want the renovations and are only sold on the idea of a new stadium, it will be another 10-15 years likely before that ever becomes a realistic option, and by then the landscape of the NFL might be changed.
It's certainly a nice looking complex. But nevertheless it's dead, the reviews on yelp are bad and even one of the young bartenders at the beer place I ended up talking to for a while seemed unenthusiastic about the surrounding businesses and traffic flow and overall potential (though she liked the bar -- called TAP -- a lot. As did I, at least in theory).
There are a lot of new housing developments on Lyons. Definitely. 441 has become sort of a parallel Western highway as a lot of people who originally moved out to Wellington now feel more inconvenienced by the difficulty getting in and out of there, especially as their original reason for founding Wellington -- avoiding integration -- has now evaporated. That population is now moving a bit more to the East and spread out North and South. That's what I think we're seeing with Lyons -- the original Wellington demographic leaving Wellington. Also contributing to this imo is that a good chunk of the original upper middle class housing in Wellington is now ~30 years old and has fallen to a bit of disrepair compared to today's mini-Mansions, leading to a drop in housing prices and an influx of relatively "lower" class people, leading to a bit of rich flight.
That being said, if you go to, say, Lyons and Hypoluxo (about a 10-15 minute drive North from Atlantic) there's a shopping complex built around a Publix supermarket that's been there, oh I dunno, close to a decade, if not more. If the business market in that area was as ripe as you're suggesting that complex should be thriving and surrounded by interesting shops and businesses. But it's not. The customers there are old and the people eating at the Italian restaurant in that complex even older. The other three corners? Fields, even still. Wealthy housing is all around but still those corners remain empty. It's a similar story on Lyons and Lantana Road (North of Hypoluxo). Despite the nearby golf course and country club and wealth all around the corner has an LA Fitness on it and two drug stores and that's pretty much it. I don't see any reason that West Delray is going to be any more successful than those redevelopment ventures.
I think it's clear we're approaching this from two very different vantage points. You're looking at it from the point of view of the real estate developer. You want to find an undeveloped area that's surrounded by wealth and put your business there. That's the right way to think about most businesses. However, getting beyond our perceptions of the actual demographics of this area you have to consider that the people you're counting on -- the young, wealthy future season ticket holding professionals who moved away from the hustle and bustle near the coast -- might not want to have a football stadium in their midst. In fact, they very well might hate and fear the idea and do everything in their power to stop it. When I was a kid some investors started plans to build a bowling alley near where I lived. My dad actually led a public campaign to get the bowling alley stopped because he didn't want the clientele of a bowling alley near his house and his kids (the investors ended up caving and building the bowling alley a little farther away). That's the kind of campaigns any effort to bring a football stadium to West Delray would face.
My vantage point in this matter is of the fan. I want the stadium surrounded by the most energy and vitality as possible, because I think that energy and vitality has a way of getting inside the stadium and helping the team win. That's why the stadium should move South, not North. Definitely not North. Despite national perceptions to the contrary Miami is actually undergoing what I think is a very nice urban and cultural renewal. It's becoming a place interesting people want to move to. I only expect that to grow and the city to flourish. And that's where the stadium should be.
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Some excellent ideas and undeniable logic regarding the benefits and need for a new stadium but in the end I think Nubs is right unfortunately.
DefensiveEnd76
Football Guru
Would love a new stadium similar to the one the Seahawks have. Oh well.
poppy
Seasoned Veteran
Not reality, but what is being proposed has some Elements of Century Link with respect to the canopy and closer seats to the field. The 12th man factor will be back.
DefensiveEnd76
Football Guru
Seeing that there are thousands of empty seats all the time at Sun Life the Dolphins may as well just share a high school football stadium that holds a couple thousand fans. Sounds about right.