Stop the Proposed Building of a MLS Soccer Stadium on Biscayne Blvd at Museum Park

Mayor Gimenez, Mayor Regalado and Commissioner Sarnoff, please don’t sell our land and waterfront to Beckham’s group and destroy the beauty of the Water front Museum park. We have already voted on referendums in the past and we the voters want Museum Park, not a Stadium. The signers of this petition are the residents and home owners of the surrounding area, please listen our plea as we will remember this come voting time.

The residents of Downtown Miami unanimously oppose the Museum Park location as the proposed site for the building of the Beckham Stadium. The boat slip they propose to fill in is the last remaining natural western boundary of Biscayne Bay and the property of the citizens of Miami. Museum Park was promised to all the residents of Miami and we’ve spent 14 years fighting to keep this as a world class city park, a space for everyone’s recreational use. Beckham is proposing to take away our park and replace it with a privately owned park hidden behind the giant cement walls of a Stadium and this is simply not logical . Museum Park and the surrounding area they propose to destroy belongs to the taxpayers of Miami and we will not sell out when there are much better venues available in areas where the access and parking already exist. The Biscayne Bay location does not offer sufficient parking and the existing parking lots in the area are scheduled to disappear in the next two years. The claim that there are 10,000 available parking spots in downtown is simply false and is evident during every HEAT game and concert held at the AA Arena. Access to this area is already a huge challenge during concert and HEAT game events where it’s not uncommon to wait two hours to access the area. Furthermore, the approved Miami World Center plans to close several east west streets and there are plans to reduce the lanes of Biscayne Blvd south of 5th St. and Flager. This will further exacerbate an already growing problem of accessibility to our homes and local businesses. The violence that sometimes erupts after soccer games will create a huge security risk for everyone who resides or visits the downtown area and most certainly will reduce the value of our downtown properties.