Improvement of the $1 billion Miami Freedom Park is off to a tough begin with a contractor alleging its homeowners haven’t paid a late six-figure invoice.
Indianapolis-based Hunt Development Group, led by CEO Robert Hunt, sued Coral Gables-based Miami Freedom Park LLC in Miami-Dade Circuit Courtroom final month for allegedly skipping out on three invoices totaling roughly $590,000.
Final 12 months, Miami Freedom Park employed Hunt to offer preconstruction providers for the soccer stadium-anchored mixed-use venture on the former Melreese Golf Course in Allapattah owned by the town of Miami, based on a contract hooked up to the grievance. The venture is being developed by billionaire Jorge Mas, his brother Jose Mas, retired worldwide soccer star David Beckham and Los Angeles-based Ares Administration.
In 2022, Miami Freedom Park signed a 99-year lease with the town of Miami to redevelop the 58-acre website at 1400 Northwest thirty seventh Avenue. Prep work for the venture started in 2023. The identical group owns Inter Miami CF, the Main League Soccer franchise that at present performs at DRV PNK Stadium, which is on a 34-acre website the group leases from the town of Fort Lauderdale.
A spokesperson for Miami Freedom Park, and Jason Perkins, Hunt Development’s lawyer, didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Hunt Development labored for Miami Freedom Park between March and August of final 12 months, the grievance states. Throughout that point span, the contractor despatched the event entity three payments for $125,000, $265,749 and $193,468. Miami Freedom Park subsequently ignored a requirement letter despatched in September, the lawsuit alleges.
In the meantime, Miami Freedom Park’s homeowners and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez lately confronted a firestorm of public criticism over a $20 million dedication the venture builders made for public inexperienced area, revealed experiences state. Three years in the past, the Miami Metropolis Fee authorised the lease and a growth settlement with a stipulation that half of the general public inexperienced area cash could be spent on metropolis parks in different districts, and the opposite half for a park throughout the 58-acre mixed-use website.
However final month, Suarez efficiently sought metropolis fee approval permitting Miami Freedom Park to spend your entire $20 million for the venture’s public park. The opposite metropolis districts would nonetheless obtain $10 million, however from one other supply of funding.
Permitted by a citywide referendum in 2018, the Arquitectonica-designed Miami Freedom Park would entail a 25,000-seat stadium, three inns with a mixed 750 rooms, 400,000 sq. toes of workplace area and 600,000 sq. toes of retail and restaurant area.
