With a square roof and an open center, a new Miami Dolphins stadium could help lure more Super Bowls to South Florida. Should the public pay for the construction effort? The team would like an answer
BY DOUGLAS HANKS
DHANKS@MIAMIHERALD.COM
The Miami Dolphins proposed an extensive retrofit of the team's stadium on Thursday -- including a partial roof -- and invited a debate on whether the public should pay for the renovation.
Without the new 621,000-square-foot roof and other modifications, the Super Bowl may not return to South Florida after its played at the stadium Feb. 7, Dolphins CEO Mike Dee said at a press event. He declined to estimate how much the retrofit would cost or commit the team to paying for any of it. Two local Super Bowl organizers earlier put the price at between $200 million and $250 million.
The presentation set the stage for the stadium to pursue public dollars as local and state leaders grapple with grim budget shortfalls. But even after Thursday's presentation, it was unknown what exactly the Dolphins wanted in terms of public financing.
Dee said the Dolphins do not need the stadium improvements for regular season games, and that it was up to local Super Bowl organizers to decide if the renovations are worth pursuing. Rodney Barreto, chairman of South Florida's Super Bowl Host Committee, declined to say which public funds he might pursue.
Dee and Barreto tied the renovation with the economic windfalls that come with Super Bowls and other large stadium events, including Orange Bowl and World Cup soccer.
``This is Corporate America at its best. They're going to be here wining and dining,'' Barreto said of Super Bowl's deep-pocketed visitors. ``The worst thing we can do as a community is to say -- and I hear this often -- `Don't worry. It's coming again'''.
Dee said the team has not calculated how much the construction would cost. He also said he had no suggestion for where to find public dollars for the renovation, saying the team ``would leave no rock unturned'' in searching for a way to get the work done.
Asked if the Dolphins would invest in the effort, Dee said it was too early to say. But he noted previous owner Wayne Huizenga had spent about $250 million in recent years on renovations to the privately owned stadium -- work that current owner Stephen Ross paid for in buying the team.
``We're talking about Phase Two'' of the renovation Huizenga began, Dee said.
Tourism officials oppose using hotel taxes to fund stadium improvements at the expense of local convention centers. Miami-Dade commissioners last year pledged hotel taxes to more than $300 million in debt for a new Florida Marlins baseball stadium.
The plans Dee unveiled would bring the biggest change to the Dolphins home field since it opened as Joe Robbie Stadium in 1987. Four spar-like pylons would jut from the stadium corners to support the square roof, resembling bridge spans from the highway as spectators approached Dolphin Stadium.
The roof itself would allow natural light and rain in through the open center, but would cover all 75,000 seats. That would prevent the sort debacle that still makes organizers wince: the 2007 deluge that soaked spectators at the 2007 Super Bowl championship at the stadium.
Along with new stadium lights, the Dolphins would add about 3,000 seats in the lower bowl -- filling up the space by the sidelines needed to accommodate a baseball field when the Marlins moved in 17 years ago.
The Miami Herald
